Étiquette : peinture
The Cenacle of Meaux and Christian Humanism in the Renaissance
“Everything that happens daily in this country stems from a government that calls itself ‘Christian.’ For weeks, not only Jews but also thousands of faithful Catholics in Germany—and I think throughout the world—have been waiting and hoping that the Church of Christ [the Roman Catholic Church] will raise its voice to put an end to this abuse of Christ’s name. Is not this idolatry of race and state power, hammered into the masses daily by radio, a blatant heresy? Is not all of this in total contradiction with the attitude of our Lord and Savior, who, even on the cross, prayed for those who persecuted him?” 1
This quote is similar in many ways to what many Christians feel today in the face of the abuse of « religion » to justify rapacious and bloody wars presented as « just wars, » especially by prominent members of the Trump Administration, notably its Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth.
History tragically repeats itself, for this quote is not new. It comes from a letter sent to the Pope in 1933 by Edith Stein, a philosopher of Jewish origin who became a Carmelite nun, when German Catholics, a minority in this Protestant country, signed a Concordat with Hitler. The common enemy to be fought was now Bolshevism. In exchange for their silence in the face of Nazi barbarity, Hitler offered them his gracious protection.
In France, at the same time, big business, Europeanists before their time, were proclaiming: « Better Hitler than the Popular Front! »
Our good fortune today is to have a pope who raises his voice for peace and justice for all. And one can hope that his voice can give everyone the courage to stop the mad march towards war.
On Palm Sunday, Leo XIV forcefully reiterated that no one can justify war in the name of the Lord:
God « does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war. » « On the contrary, he who has turned his back on the living God, making himself and his own power a mute, blind, and deaf idol, is enslaved to death. »
In addition to the thirst for power, there is also the thirst for money, which was denounced during his trip to the Principality of Monaco.
During his first year as Pope, he repeatedly called for a reconciliation that was « disarmed and disarming. » To the « warlords » who make their power « a mute, blind, and deaf idol, » he contrasted listening to a « melody greater than ourselves » —a harmony to which we can dance when the world seems to forget even « the light. »
The arrival of Pope Leo XIV in France
In a statement published on May 6, the president of the Conference of Bishops of France confirmed what many had been hoping for for a year: although it remains to be confirmed, Leo XIV could come to France at the end of September 2026, stopping in Paris and Lourdes.
This is an opportunity for us to evoke one of the most luminous upsurges of our country, which reached its peak in 1521, with the creation of the Cenacle of Meaux by the philosopher-theologian Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples (1450-1537) , at the request of his student Bishop Guillaume Briçonnet (1472-1534) .
It was not a philosophical or prayer circle. Its primary purpose was to read, study, translate, and print the Gospel in French and to train clergymen in preaching. The approach was so simple, honest, and innovative that it deeply disturbed the established political and religious powers. The Cenacle was closed after only four years, its leaders were persecuted, and forced into exile. It was only thanks to the protection of Marguerite of Navarre (1492–1549) (also known as Marguerite of Angoulême or Marguerite of Valois-Angoulême), sister of king Francis I, who embraced this movement, that its leading figures were able to escape the flames of the stake.
Renaissance Evangelicalism
For Guillaume d’Alonge, Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples is
« The intellectual leader and founder of French evangelicalism, a reform movement that developed in the early decades of the 16th century, in parallel with the Protestant Reformation, with which it had important points of contact. » 2
What some call « Renaissance evangelicalism » (not to be confused with American messianic evangelicalism, a current that animates today’s warmongers) corresponds to a movement of ideas characterized by the valorization of biblical exegesis.
Unlike evangelicalism in the most common sense of the term, it does not necessarily relate to the Protestant Reformation. On the contrary, many humanists who did not wish to break with the papacy but nevertheless declared themselves hostile to ecclesiastical abuses, such as Erasmus of Rotterdam and François Rabelais, were driven by a desire for reform without schism.
While Catholics sought to eradicate them by ignoring them, Protestants have always claimed that they were one of their own.
Like Erasmus, Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples was certainly a reformer, but he never considered breaking with the Roman Catholic Church, as demanded by Luther, Calvin, and other figures of the Protestant Reformation. The Christian humanists of the Renaissance believed, perhaps naively, that by appealing to reason, the Roman Curia would eventually yield to their demands and agree to eradicate the corruption and abuses that severely plagued the institution.
Humanism
It was in Italy, with Petrarch (1304-1374) , that humanism was born. The poet began by collecting inscriptions on the old stones of Rome and continued his quest for the Ancients in manuscripts.
With his friend Boccaccio , he brought Byzantine scholars to Italy to revive the study of Greek and Latin. While the term humanist then referred to someone who, through the study of Greek and Latin , « cultivated the humanities » ( studia humanitatis ), Renaissance humanist thinkers did not renounce their Christian faith but rather sought to reconcile the two.
A very clear break with scholastic pessimism then took place. Conceiving of himself as « created in the living image of the Creator, » the Renaissance man, uomo universale, endowed with reason and free will, no longer blamed the devil. It was he who had to strive to overcome his evil inclinations. And if he fully developed his creative potential, it was above all to please the Creator by placing his life at the service of the public good rather than his personal glory.
In Northern Europe, the movement of the Brethren and Sisters of the Common Life and that of the Beguines stemmed from the conviction that the contemplative life and the active life should complement each other and not oppose each other. Each person should live « in imitation of Christ. » It was in Deventer, among the Brethren of the Common Life , that Erasmus, inspired by teachers like Rudolph Agricola , discovered Christian humanism and the « good literature . «
Greek and the Greeks
While the study of Greek penetrated Italy and the Netherlands from the beginning of the 15th century, in France, young elites jostled to attend, from 1476 onwards, the courses of a Greek exile, Georges Hermonyme of Sparta, a poor pedagogue, rapacious and with little mastery of his own language.
But, as Jacqueline de Romilly points out:
“Hermonymus had only one merit: that of being the first. The fact is that he had as students, (…) or simply through his advice, all those who were to become the glory of nascent humanism: Reuchlin was his student, Lefèvre d’Étaples said he benefited from his advice, Erasmus asked him for lessons, as did Beatus Rhenanus – and above all our patron saint, Guillaume Budé.” 4
Two other Greeks played a major role in the revival of Hellenic studies.
And first of all , Constantin Lascaris (1434-1501). A student of Jean Argyropoulos between 1444 and 1553, he arrived in the West around 1460, after being taken prisoner during the Turkish occupation of Constantinople in 1453.
After a few short stays between the Greek islands, he became tutor to Francesco Sforza’s daughter in Milan, where he began writing his grammar, the Erotemata .
An essential tool for learning Greek, the work was first printed in Milan, then published twice by Aldus Manutius in Venice.
Constantin Lascaris then went to Rome where he met the greatest protector of Greek scholars in the West and of Byzantine humanism within the clergy, Cardinal Jean Bessarion (1403-1472), Latin Patriarch of Constantinople from 1463.
Bessarion was a friend of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), with whom he collaborated in particular during the Ecumenical Council of Ferrara/Florence, convened to end the schism between the Eastern and Western Churches.
Jean Lascaris
The other Greek scholar (unrelated to the first) is Jean (Janus) Lascaris (1445-1535) , also a protégé of Cardinal Jean Bessarion who entrusted him with numerous missions, notably bringing back precious manuscripts from Mount Athos in 1492.
Although born in Asia Minor and frequenting the great figures of Italy, Lascaris entered the service of France as Louis XII ‘s ambassador to Venice between 1503 and 1508. There he joined the academy of the printer Alde Manutius (1449-1515) where scholars from the East and West met to discuss and edit the classics.
When Erasmus went to Venice to the printer Alde Manutius to publish his Adages, a masterful work aimed at popularizing all ancient wisdom, Lascaris not only offered to welcome him into his home, but also contributed to the work himself.
Erasmus, writes the Belgian historian Yvonne Charlier, feverishly composed his Adages there.
« with the help of a host of distinguished scholars, including Jean-Baptiste Egnazio, a member of the Aldine Academy, and Jean Lascaris, a Greek refugee, passionate about manuscripts and ambassador of Louis XII to Venice. »
He also worked with Lascaris, the young French student Germain de Brie.
A few years later, when Erasmus and Thomas More published Utopia in 1516, a fictional account of a people (the Utopians) who attempt to create an ideal society based on the principles defined by Plato in his Republic, they argue that they must be of Greek origin, since Lascaris « was their only grammarian ».
It was in Venice that Jean Lascaris and Erasmus together conceived the idea of a College of Languages. Being able to compare the translations of the Gospel into Hebrew and Greek was the essential condition for achieving a proper understanding of its content.
Lascaris ended his life in Rome with Pope Leo X , who in 1514 commissioned him to found the « Greek College of the Quirinal. » Erasmus, against all odds, and especially against the theologians of the Brabant university town of Leuven, opened the Trilingual College there in 1517.
Lascaris also took care of the Royal Library, which was established in Blois in 1501 by Louis XII, then moved to Fontainebleau with Guillaume Budé under Francis I.
Subsequently, at Budé’s insistence, François I created in 1530, under royal patronage, the « Collège des Lecteurs royaux, » allowing the study of Greek and all subjects rejected by the Sorbonne.
Lascaris’s close relationship with Lefèvre d’Étaples may have led to the writing that the work of the great French scholars, Budé, Scaliger, Casaubon, Lambin, Cujas, Estienne, appeared
« To be a continuation of the schools of Byzantium and Alexandria, rather than an emanation of currents coming from Italy. » 5
Hidden from Europeans for centuries, this immense heritage – one could say a vast civilization that was being rediscovered – thus made its way to the kingdom of France thanks to men such as Lascaris, whose disciples like Lefèvre took over.
Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples
Philosopher, mathematician, musicologist and theologian, Jacques Lefèvre was born around 1450 in Étaples, Picardy, and died in 1536 in Nérac (Lot-et-Garonne). He Latinized his name to Jacobus Faber Stupulensis, hence the nickname « Fabritists » given to those who adhere to his doctrine.
He studied in Paris, where he earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in arts. He then entered the clergy and became a priest, though it is unknown whether he actually served in this capacity. Gentle and timid by nature, of delicate constitution, and possessing a selflessness that led him to bequeath his inheritance to his brothers and nephews in order to devote himself more freely to his studies, Jacques Lefèvre primarily studied literature and philosophy.
After completing his studies and teaching literature for a time, he developed a taste for travel. He explored parts of Europe, and it is even said that his desire to broaden his knowledge led him to Asia and Africa. Drawn by the winds of renewal that the Renaissance was sweeping across Europe, Lefèvre traveled to Italy at least twice, spending extended periods in Pavia, Padua, Venice, Rome, and Florence.
With his translation of Plato and Aristotle, Leonardo Bruni (1370-1444) provided Italy, and with it the scholarly world, with a philosophical framework. Italian humanism sided with Plato.
Aristotle was attacked for « his metaphysics which puts the particular before the general, his theology which substitutes an inactive god for Plato’s creator God, his psychology which does not dare to resolutely affirm the immortality of the soul, his morality which locates virtue not in goodness, but in the golden mean between good and evil. » 6
In 1492, Lefèvre met and discussed with Florentine Platonists and Neo-Platonists, grouped around Marsilio Ficino, his student Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Poliziano and Ermolao Barbaro.
Starting with Hermes Trismegistus, Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Cicero, this school of thought emphasized the supposed complementarity between Plato and Aristotle rather than their opposition, hoping to reconcile the doctrines of the two philosophers. Positioning himself above both camps, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was preparing a major work, which death prevented him from completing: the Concordia Platonis et Aristoteles , which aimed to reduce all philosophies and religions to a single wisdom, naturally under the tutelage of the Vatican. Florentine Neoplatonism then exerted a significant influence on an entire generation of prelates and clergymen.
Later, in 1509, under the warrior Pope Julius II, his Neoplatonists advisors dictated to Raphael the content of the frescoes in the Stanza della Segnatura, where Pico della Mirandola features prominently. In his treatise The Ciceronians, Erasmus denounced these Neoplatonists who, instead of Christianizing Plato, used ancient philosophy to reduce Christianity to pagan barbarity.
Returning to Paris in 1495, Lefèvre became a professor at the Cardinal Lemoine college where he taught, until 1507, according to the fashion of the time, philosophy, geometry, arithmetic, grammar, geography, cosmography and music.
His first works were commentaries on Aristotle, a Greek philosopher who was often quoted but rarely read. Somewhat surprisingly, it was only after his encounter with the Florentine Neoplatonists that he decided to publish Aristotle’s writings, in the versions of the Quattrocento humanists, accompanied by commentaries aimed at restoring the philosopher’s sound understanding . Ambitious, Lefèvre conceived his Aristotelian corpus as a reaction against scholastic teaching, against which he had no words harsh enough in his prefaces.
Using the partial or incomplete translations provided by Boethius and Bessarion, he attempts to rid them of what François Rabelais called « the so filthy glosses. » At the time, he still hoped to reconcile Aristotle’s thought with the message of the Gospel.
But Lefèvre did not forget Plato . In 1499, he published the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, a 6th-century Neoplatonist thinker who was mistakenly considered one of Christ’s disciples. He then turned his attention to John of Damascus, Nicholas of Cusa, and the Spanish mystic Raymond Lull : authors who nourished the spiritual reflection of French Christians throughout the century. Lefèvre, the mathematician, found himself aligned with the approach of Nicholas of Cusa, for whom, as for Pythagoras, mathematics was simply the science of divine proportions.
Paradoxically, it was after reading Pseudo-Dionysius that he rejected what he had once adored, and his subsequent commentaries reveal a profound distrust of Platonism. In 1506, following his Politics, he published a summary of the Republic and the Laws , entitled Hecatonomies , the margins of which are frequently annotated with « stultitia » (foolishness) or « semistultitia » (half-foolishness). In this treatise, he grouped together the Platonic principles he approved of and those he condemned.
Briçonnet
At one point, Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples got the attention of the powerful Briçonnet family.
It was a true dynasty of diplomats, builders and great servants of the Kingdom.
Guillaume Briçonnet (1445-1514) was a French royal officer and later a clergyman, known as the Cardinal of Saint-Malo. Initially a financier, he served as the general of finances for Languedoc under Louis XI.
After his wife’s death, he entered the clergy. Recommended by Louis XI to his successor, he was appointed Secretary of the Treasury. He served as Minister of State under Charles VIII and was created a cardinal by the Pope in 1495. On May 27, 1498, he crowned Louis XII in Reims.
Guillaume Briçonnet (the elder) had a son of the same name, born in 1470. In 1489, while a student in Paris at the Collège de Navarre (he was only 19 years old at the time), Guillaume Briçonnet (the younger) was appointed Bishop of Lodève in Southern France. He also became Abbot of Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert in 1493, a monastry built by one of the lieutenants of Charlemagne. .
He continued to reside in Paris for a time to complete his education, under the tutelage of flemish theologian Josse Clichtove, through whom he met Lefèvre d’Étaples and his circle. In 1495, succeeding his uncle Robert, Archbishop of Reims, Guillaume Briçonnet became one of the two presidents of the Chamber of Accounts in Paris, a position he held until 1507. Having been made a canon of the Church of Paris in 1503, he had a magnificent residence built for himself in the cloister of Notre-Dame.
Appointed abbot of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in 1507, he summoned Lefebvre to his side to promote a reform of the monks’ morals. For Lefebvre, this was a moment of truth. What becomes strikingly clear is that he never practiced philosophy to distance himself from religion; on the contrary, his quest for truth was merely a step in his journey toward God. Prudent in examining the doctrines of others, he avoided taking sides while pursuing his own reflections. Far more than from Aristotle or Plato, it was from the Gospels that Lefebvre drew his inspiration. For him, the study of Holy Scripture was to be the culmination of his work, its natural endpoint.
“In the distance,” he wrote, “such a brilliant light struck my eyes that human doctrines seemed like darkness compared to divine studies, while the latter appeared to exhale a fragrance whose sweetness is unmatched on Earth.” 8
Lefèvre wanted to draw closer to the light he saw in the distance. It could be said that he was going through a « mystical crisis. » The list of « mystical » authors whose works Lefèvre published is long. From the one he considered the most ancient of all, Dionysius the Areopagite, it extends to the most recent, Nicholas of Cusa, passing through Heraclitus, Hermes Trismegistus, John Damascene, Raymond Lull, Richard of Saint Victor, and Ruysbroeck the Admirable .
In 1509, Lefèvre published a Psalter in five languages. The choice to focus first on the Psalter was primarily pastoral in nature: he wanted to offer monks an effective tool to fully understand the content of their prayers, but also to emphasize the centrality of the direct relationship between the faithful and God.
In 1511, while passing through Paris, Erasmus met Lefèvre. Although they may have criticized each other, they deeply respected one another and shared a common commitment throughout their lives.
Lefèvre continued his offensive by publishing the Epistles of Paul (1512), which we know constituted one of the battlegrounds for the Reformation in general and for Luther in particular (« faith and works » or « faith alone » as the path to salvation).
One important point clearly aligns Lefèvre with Erasmus and distinctly separates him from Luther: his interpretation of free will. For the Picard theologian, despite the state of misery and powerlessness into which original sin has plunged humanity, we retain the capacity, however diminished, to receive the gift of grace, to open ourselves to salvation, to reject evil, and to choose good. From this stems a more optimistic and serene vision of the salvation process, truly open and accessible to all, in contrast to the somber and anguished interpretation of salvation that the Reformers reserved for a select few.
Lefèvre, publisher of Nicholas of Cusa
in the 1514 edition by Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples at Josse Bade in Paris.
Lefèvre shared his « mystical » passion with the Briçonnet family, and later with Marguerite de Navarre.
And when, in 1514, Lefèvre had the complete works of Nicholas of Cusa printed in Paris, until then only published twice in Germany, he addressed his dedicatory epistle to William’s brother, Denys Briçonnet, bishop of Toulon.
According to Noëlle Balley ,
« The most remarkable example of this cooperation between scholars is the edition of the works of Nicholas of Cusa, directed by Lefèvre, for which he had manuscripts searched for and copied by all his correspondents, thus creating a truly international collective edition. » 9
His printer was Josse Bade, a passionate Fleming from Ghent, trained by printers in Lyon. Not always rigorous, he published many humanists, including Sebastian Brant (The Ship of Fools), Erasmus (In Praise of Folly), Guillaume Budé, etc.
His son-in-law was the humanist and scholarly printer Robert Estienne (1503-1559), son of the great printer Henri Estienne (1460-1520) (the elder). Francis I appointed him, before 1539, royal printer for Hebrew and Latin, as well as for Greek from 1544.
Cenacle of Meaux
From 1518 onwards, Lefèvre’s patron, Guillaume Briçonnet, decided to take up residence in his new diocese, Meaux, 41 km from Paris. There he intended to implement a pastoral reform inspired by the theological approach outlined by the Picard humanist. At the heart of this project lay the desire, shared by humanists, to bring the essential message of the Gospel to all people, even the simplest and least educated, and thus facilitate access to the mysteries of faith, with the conviction that the intervention of the Holy Spirit could inspire the minds and hearts of the faithful.
A friend and disciple of Lefèvre, Guillaume Briçonnet resolved to promote his moral ideas in his diocese. And, unusually for that time, he abandoned court life to live there.
At Briçonnet’s request, Lefèvre then founded in 1521 the Cenacle of Meaux, a center for reflection and reform of the Church of Meaux. The aim was to return to the sources of Christianity, to the original teachings of Christ, by spreading the New Testament in French: the Gospel texts were « de-Latinized. »
Oil on canvas, attributed to Jean Clouet.
Appointed in 1520 as vicar to Guillaume Briçonnet, who had become Bishop of Meaux, Lefèvre settled in that city. In 1521, Briçonnet became the spiritual director of the sister of the King of France, Marguerite de Navarre, who was committed to the cause.
That same year, Briçonnet and Lefèvre attracted several theologians and preachers to their circle, including the future Reformed philosopher Guillaume Farel, the tireless Gérard Roussel , the Flemish theologian Josse Clichtove, the Hebraist François Vatable, the eloquent Martial Mazurier, the intrepid Michel d’Arande, the renowned preacher Pierre Caroli , and Jean Lecomte de Lacroix.
Then others joined, expanding their circle: Pierre de Sébiville, Aimé Mégret , the Franciscan friar and friend of Rabelais, Pierre Amy, and Jacques Groslot , bailiff of Orléans. Their simple motto was also that of Marguerite de Navarre:
« To know the Gospel, to follow the Gospel, and to make the Gospel known everywhere. »
Marguerite of Navarre was close to Leonardo da Vinci during the last three years of his life (1516-1519) at the Château du Clos Lucé in Amboise. Marguerite had lived there with her husband, Charles IV of Alençon, in 1509. Subsequently, she stayed there regularly with her mother, Louise of Savoy, and her brother, Francis I, in the immediate vicinity of Leonardo da Vinci.
She was an influential patron of the arts, while Leonardo was the king’s « first painter. » In 1546, Rabelais paid tribute to her by dedicating his Third Book to her.
A recent thesis by Jonathan Reid has shown that Marguerite was already at the heart of a vast network including more than two hundred members of the court, diplomats, prelates, and men of letters. Extending well beyond Paris and Meaux, this network also encompassed Alençon, Lyon, Grenoble, Bourges, Poitiers, and Mâcon.
Printers, including Augereau and Du Bois, but also Simon de Colines, who was operating clandestinely in Lyon, were among them. In total, according to Reid, 450 editions of 200 « evangelical » works were printed in France thanks to Marguerite’s protection. 10
On the ground
After visiting his entire diocese, Briçonnet observed that most priests did not reside in their parishes and that the assistant priests had little to no theological training. Furthermore, they lacked the time to teach their parishioners because they had to work, as all parish income went to the priests. The only educated preachers were the Franciscan friars (aka Cordeliers), who often limited themselves to promising hell to wicked Christians.
As early as 1518, Briçonnet undertook to combat moral depravity and the laxity of ecclesiastical discipline by thoroughly reforming his diocese. He simplified worship, abolished the veneration of images and relics, and encouraged preaching to revive the faith. He considered his diocese a mission field and divided it into 26 stations of nine parishes each. But, year after year, he observed the inadequacy of these measures: more than half of the priests were incapable of properly carrying out their assigned duties. He decided to expel the 53 most unfit priests and to train new ones. The Cordeliers were forbidden from preaching.
In Meaux, the Cenacle ran a printing press to publish, among others, the works of Lefèvre d’Étaples: Commentary on the four gospels (in Latin) in 1522, Old Testament (in French), Homilies, Epistles, Gospels, Acts of the Apostles (1523) and Psalms (1524).
The main instruments of religious renewal were greater attention to the selection and education of the priestly body, the restoration of the bishop’s authority over competing religious orders, the control of pulpits entrusted to preachers faithful to Christocentric doctrine and firmly convinced of the principle of justification by faith alone, on which Lefèvre had insisted for years in his writings, as well as the printing and distribution of numerous writings and works intended for clerics and laity: these were devotional texts focused mainly on mental prayer and on the invitation to simplify and purify traditional rituals, as well as Latin and especially French versions of the Holy Scriptures.
Stripped of unnecessary glosses, the texts were read aloud to small groups of people with some education. Prayers in simple language were printed for the common people, as well as popular works beginning in 1525.
The sermons, which changed (no more threats of hell, no more collections at the end), were successful. Neighboring Picardy, the Thiérache region, and the monastery of Livry-en-Aulnoy followed the Fabrist approach.
Meaux served as a laboratory for other dioceses in the kingdom, where bishops close to the evangelical network attempted to implement the model of pastoral renewal developed by Lefèvre and his followers. But if evangelicalism did indeed become an influential and respected movement during the reign of Francis I, it was thanks to the support of a segment of the court which, as we have mentioned, referred to Marguerite. The political, economic, and diplomatic support of the king’s sister and her network allowed the Fabrists to have direct access to the court and to influence the crown’s decisions regarding the policy of tolerance toward « heresy » and the appointment of bishops and abbots.
The reaction
The Cenacle of Meaux immediately attracted the wrath of the Cordeliers (whom it deprived of the proceeds of their collections) and the theologians of the Sorbonne.
In April 1521, Luther’s theses, initially well received and studied, were condemned by the University of Paris.
Clichtove defected (he wrote a work on the cult of saints, proclaiming that « the intelligence of laymen will never be able to understand the sublime meaning contained in the divine books » which even the most learned struggle to understand).
Although Lefèvre’s translation of the New Testament is based on the Vulgate text, he makes about sixty corrections based on the Greek originals. The doctors of Paris are particularly irritated by the « Exhortatory Epistle » that he places at the beginning of the second part, where he recommends that all the faithful read Holy Scripture in the vernacular, that is, in French.
Eleven proposals were submitted to the faculty. The courts ordered that Lefèvre d’Étaples’s French New Testament be burned. But the king, informed of this affair, which he saw as nothing more than harassment by the dean of the Sorbonne, Noël Béda, intervened, and Lefèvre, having defended himself before the prelates and doctors whom the court had appointed as judges, emerged from this attack with his honor intact.
In October 1523, under pressure, Briçonnet banned Luther’s books in his diocese, and in 1524, he dismissed Farel, whose sermons were too provocative, in order to continue his work of spreading the Gospel. At his own expense, he organized public readings of the Bible and distributed translations, which reached Normandy, Champagne, and the Loire Valley.
This first phase of expansion of the Fabrist movement ended around 1525, when, under the regency, the conservative party imposed a repressive policy towards Lutherans and Evangelicals, without distinction.
The hour of persecutions
In 1525, geopolitical upheavals changed the situation in France. First, the trap set by the Italian Wars closed on Francis I. On February 24, 1525, the king was taken prisoner at Pavia by the troops of Charles V.
Consequently, he was no longer in a position to protect the Bishop of Meaux. Furthermore, in May, a papal bull authorized a group composed of three theologians from the Sorbonne and a priest to hunt down heresy.
While Lefèvre was publishing the Epistles and Gospels for the 52 Sundays of the coming year , his enemies were more successful with a new attack, taking advantage of the unrest stirred up in the diocese of Meaux by indiscreet preachers and turbulent monks. A trial opened before the Sorbonne at the instigation of the Cordeliers, who accused him of allowing « heresy » to spread.
That same year, the Parliament of Paris brought a case against Briçonnet. As a conciliatory measure, he again authorized the Cordeliers to preach, asked his parish priests to restore the veneration of saints and the Virgin Mary, forbade preaching to the most extreme elements, and took the statues and images of saints under his personal protection. Jean Leclerc, a wool carder converted to the new ideas, was flogged for putting up posters hostile to the Pope.
After barely four years of existence, the Meaux circle was dissolved in 1525.
For several months, in order to avoid arrest and conviction, Lefèvre and his family were forced to leave the kingdom and take refuge in Strasbourg. There, he strengthened his ties with moderate Protestants such as Capiton and Butzer, and associated with Otto Brunfels, to whom he was linked by a Nicodemite attitude, recognizing the legitimacy of religious concealment in a context of persecution.
In 1526, with the return of Francis I, negotiated with Spain by Margaret of Navarre, and thanks to her protection, they were back in France and managed to maintain some influence for a few more years at court and throughout the rest of the kingdom, through intense activity in printing and disseminating written works, as well as through systematic preaching in the heart of the capital. The king granted Lefèvre the position of personal librarian at Blois and entrusted him with the education of his two children.
Guillaume Briçonnet, for his part, was acquitted. In 1528, he participated in the Synod of Paris that condemned Lutheranism. A year later, Francis I and Marguerite failed to save the life of preacher Louis de Berquin (1490-1529), a friend of Erasmus and also a translator of Lutheran treatises. He was burned alive in the Place de Grève in Paris.
Exile
In 1530, Lefèvre chose to leave the court to go to Nérac to be with his patroness, Marguerite de Navarre. He remained there until his death in 1536, preferring not to take sides in the disputes between Protestants and Catholics.
He cannot be accused of Protestantism, although his comments on priestly celibacy, fasting, and the sacraments are extremely harsh and pave the way for the Reformed movement. The term « evangelicalism, » recently proposed, seems, on the other hand, to be appropriate for this attitude of absolute fidelity to the spirit and the letter of Scripture.
Marguerite de Navarre , it must be emphasized, was a learned woman.
While she knew Latin and even Greek, she was far from mastering these ancient languages like Lefèvre, whose lessons she was able to attend.
For religious reasons, she even received Hebrew lessons from Paul Paradis, nicknamed Canosse, who would later become a lecturer at the Collège Royal. She was greatly influenced by the inspiration and ideas of the Cenacle of Meaux, examples of which she provides particularly in her secular comedies and poems.
And according to one historian,
« She was also familiar with Nicholas of Cusa, author of ‘De Docte Ignorance’, also edited by Lefèvre, with Saint Bonaventure, and with Pseudo-Dionysius, actually a 5th-century Syrian monk. » 11
In 1531, the Venetian scholar Jerome Aleander, former papal nuncio who had become Erasmus’s chief persecutor for the Roman Curia, proved to be very well informed about the situation. He regretted that Lefèvre remained under the influence of his former disciple Gerard Roussel, Bishop of Oloron.
The ambition of the Roman and French conservatives at that time was to convince Lefèvre to write a retraction of his errors and to go to Rome to obtain his full reintegration into the Roman Church.
This was not the case. Although Lefèvre could no longer publicly display his spiritual beliefs, he remained close to the positions of his disciples Roussel and Marguerite, who, throughout the reign of Francis I, even after the Affair of the Placards, continued to advocate a third way between Rome and Geneva. In 1534, Briçonnet died at the Château d’Esmans, near Montereau-Fault-Yonne.
Conclusion
Lefèvre’s translation of the Holy Bible , based on the Vulgate text, was printed not in France, but in Antwerp in 1530.
This was the first Bible in the vernacular language, which served as the basis for all French translations, including modern ones.
A center of preaching, this epicenter of Christian humanism, the Cenacle of Meaux , a precursor of « reformism » , had a great influence on the humanists and writers of this generation.
Marguerite protected François Rabelais (1483-1553) and encouraged him to write Gargantua and Pantagruel.
A friend of Rabelais, the famous poet Clément Marot, entered Marguerite’s service. He was soon accused of heresy and took refuge in Nérac in 1535.
Nicknamed the « mother of the Renaissance, » Marguerite de Navarre was the mother of Jeanne d’Albret and therefore the grandmother of Henri IV, the good King Henri who, knowing this intellectual and spiritual lineage, would embody this ideal in action.
It was certainly with the work of the Cenacle of Meaux in mind that he succeeded, at least in part, in putting an end to the Wars of Religion ravaging France.
The inclusive peace he organized in France, based on the coincidence of opposites theorized by Nicholas of Cusa, would be the model for the Peace of Westphalia which ended the Thirty Years’ War in 1648.
Selected Bibliography
- ALONGE, Guillaume Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples in the religious crisis of the 16th century , nord’ 2022/2 No. 80, pages 15 to 21, Éditions Société de Littérature du Nord.
- BARNAUD, Jean
— Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples: the preparation , Theological and religious studies, 11th year, No. 1, 1936.
— Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples, Master of Philosophy , Theological and Religious Studies, 11th year, No. 2, 1936.
— Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples (continued) , Theological and Religious Studies, 11th year, No. 3, 1936.
— Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples (continued and concluded) , Theological and Religious Studies, 11th year, No. 4-5, 1936. - CHARLIER, Yvonne , Erasmus and friendship, based on his correspondence , Editions Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 1977.
- DE ROMILLY, Jacqueline, Five centuries of Hellenism in France , Bulletin of the Association Guillaume Budé, March 1977.
- EICHEL-LOJKINE, Patricia, Marguerite de Navarre, pearl of the Renaissance , Perrin, Paris, 2021.
- PERNOT, Jean-François, Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples (1450? – 1536), Proceedings of the Etaples colloquium on November 7 and 8, 1992, Classiques Garnier, Paris, 1995.
NOTES:
- https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/agreement-catholic-church ↩︎
- file:///C:/Users/User/Desktop/alonge-2022-jacques-lefevre-detaples-dans-la-crise-religieuse-du-xvie-siecle.pdf ↩︎
- Christian humanism differs from « secular humanism » (anti-religious) and supposedly « scientific. » Once the spiritual dimension was eliminated, the humanist dimension also fell by the wayside. Julian Huxley, one of the great promoters of « secular humanism, » ended up inventing the term « transhumanist, » an ideology he saw as capable of replacing all religions. Millionaire Jeffrey Epstein, as well as billionaires Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, and Peter Thiel, are adherents of this ideology .
- file:///C:/Users/User/Desktop/Jacques%20LEtap/Romilly_Helle%CC%81isme-France.pdf ↩︎
- Börje Knös , An Ambassador of Hellenism: Janus Lascaris and the Greco-Byzantine Tradition in French Humanism , Uppsala, Almqvist & Wiksells, 1945 .
- Philip. Monnier , The Quattrocento . Volume II, p. 82. ↩︎
- https://www.etudesheraultaises.fr/publi/evocation-de-guillaume-briconnet-eveque-de-lodeve-de-1489-a-1519/ ↩︎
- Heminjard , Correspondence of the Reformers, vol. I, p. 4, note. ↩︎
- https://theses.chartes.psl.eu/document/ENCPOS_1991_01 ↩︎
- Jonathan Reid , King’s Sister, Queen of Dissent: Marguerite de Navarre (1492-1549) and her Evangelical Network . Leyden, Brill, 2009; 2 vol. ↩︎
- Jean-Pierre Duteil . Marguerite de Navarre . Ellipses, 2021. hal-04186835.
Karel Vereycken Celebrated in « 100 Artists of Europe » Book
The art work of Franco-Belgian painter engraver Karel Vereycken is featured in the just released book « 100 Artists of Europe » published by Culturale Lab. The artist is honored to be part of this initiative celebrating creativity across our continent ! #100ArtistsOfEurope #EuropeanArt #CultureAndArt
Karel Vereycken featured on FineArtsNews.com
Karel Vereycken: Crafting Paradoxical Metaphors to Reveal the Invisible
Franco-Belgian painter engraver Karel Vereycken is now featured on FineArtsNews.com!
This amazing opportunity was made possible through Culturale Lab (@culturalelab @culturalelab_art), a platform dedicated to supporting and promoting contemporary artists worldwide.
His story has been published on FineArtsNews.com, a respected international publication covering fine arts, museum exhibitions, and the global art scene.
« It’s an incredible honor to have my work and artistic journey showcased to art collectors, gallery professionals, museum curators, and fine art lovers worldwide, » said Vereycken. « This feature explores my creative process, inspirations, and recent works. I’m grateful for this opportunity to connect with art lovers and collectors around the world. »
Read the full article:
https://fineartsnews.com/2026/04/karel-vereycken-crafting-paradoxical-metaphors-to-reveal-the-invisible/
Karel Vereycken webpage at Circle Foundation for the Arts
On April 20, 2026, Franco-Belgian painter engraver Karel Vereycken became a member of the Circle Foundation for the Arts (CFA).
In this new capacity of a « Circle Artist » he could open a permanent dedicated webpage on the CFA website, an additional window increasing the artists overall visibility and reach-out.
https://circle-arts.com/member/karel-vereycken/
Thanks for that !
Karel Vereycken featured in « Art to Hearts » Magazine
The international art magazine Art to Hearts, in its edition #12 appearing in April 2026, took two pages (p. 83-84) to feature the artistic statement and three engravings of Franco-Belgian painter engraver Karel Vereycken.
Big thanks for that !
« Arts to Hearts Magazine, a key initiative of the Arts to Hearts Project, highlights and amplifies the voices of artists worldwide. This international art publication offers a platform to showcase their diverse talents, perspectives, and stories. Widely available through retailers like Barnes & Noble and Amazon, the magazine connects artists to a global audience of galleries, curators, collectors, and art lovers, bringing their work into the spotlight. »
Karel Vereycken awarded Honorable Mention in 14th Open Art Competition
In April 2026, Karel Vereycken‘s watercolor « The Crab » obtained an « Honorable Mention » at 14th « Open » International Juried Art Contest of Teravarna.
A Milan, Karel Vereycken appelle à une « nouvelle Renaissance »
Le 21 mars, lors de la remise du Prix international « Le Génie universel – Hommage à Léonard de Vinci », dans l’auditorium du prestigieux Musée national des sciences et des techniques Léonard de Vinci, à Milan, le peintre graveur Karel Vereycken a lancé un appel en faveur d’une « Nouvelle Renaissance ».
Venus de soixante pays, une bonne centaine d’artistes et d’amateurs d’art assistaient à la cérémonie.
En guise de clôture, un représentant diplomatique du Mexique a félicité organisateurs et artistes présents.
Avant de se métamorphoser en fondation, c’était une association destinée à promouvoir les artistes débutants et confirmés. Galerie d’art et éditeur, la Fondation organise régulièrement des expositions internationales dans de nombreuses villes italiennes et étrangères.
Les finalistes avaient été sélectionnés pour la consistance artistique de leur démarche par les conservateurs de la « Fondazione Effetto Arte » de Palerme.
Concernant leur mission, les organisateurs écrivent sur leur site :
« Nous sommes convaincus que nos expériences doivent se concrétiser et s’étendre, afin de contrer l’aplatissement intellectuel de notre époque. Plus que jamais, en ce moment historique, l’art a besoin d’espaces de participation maximale pour que le grand public puisse y prendre part. C’est la voie que nous nous engageons à suivre pour les événements futurs, afin de permettre à un nombre croissant de personnes d’entrer en contact avec la dimension artistique, de la manière la plus simple et la plus directe, comme un moment de partage social avec les communautés artistiques. »
Vereycken n’était que l’un des nombreux lauréats primés. Remerciant les organisateurs pour cette distinction, plusieurs artistes ont expliqué en quoi Léonard de Vinci avait été pour eux une source d’inspiration personnelle et constante.
L’un d’eux a déclaré :
« À 28 ans, je pouvais reproduire de mémoire la plupart des tableaux de Léonard. »
Nombre d’entre eux, très émus, ont évoqué leur art, non seulement comme un refuge face à l’anxiété envahissante du moment présent, mais aussi comme un moyen pour combattre et réduire la menace d’une guerre imminente.
Discours
Chers organisateurs, chers collègues, honorables invités,
Tout d’abord, félicitations à vous tous, et plus particulièrement aux graveurs, car nous nous faisons rares. Voici ma gravure sur cuivre. (Apparaît sur grand écran « Le pêcheur flamand », à gauche sur la photo du catalogue.)
C’est avec un grand honneur et un immense plaisir que j’assiste à cet événement important et que j’accepte cette distinction.
Je tiens à féliciter les organisateurs pour cette initiative. Jamais le moment n’a été plus opportun pour rendre hommage au génie de la Renaissance, Léonard de Vinci, car aujourd’hui, en ces temps sombres de guerre, de corruption et de déprévation, il est absolument urgent que nous, artistes et amateurs d’art, renouions avec les plus hautes exigences.
Où en est le monde aujourd’hui ? Nous sommes entrés dans le siècle de la supercherie absolue, où de fausses informations et de fausses monnaies sont produites par de fausses élites se servant de l’intelligence fausse pour manipuler l’information, tout en poussant le monde réel à de véritables guerres contre de véritables êtres humains.
Pire encore pour les arts : le meurtre, la guerre et même le génocide sont promus sur internet comme des œuvres d’art à vendre.
Réveillons-nous ! Déjà en 1789, alors que les révolutions balayaient l’Europe, le poète allemand Friedrich Schiller, dans un poème, soulignait l’importance de l’ART :
« Artistes ! La dignité de l’homme est remise en vos mains : gardez-la ! Elle tombe avec vous ! Avec vous elle s’élèvera ! »
Par conséquent, une nouvelle Renaissance n’est pas un simple rêve. Il faut la concrétiser à nouveau, afin de réhumaniser l’humanité et de recréer l’empathie nécessaire au dialogue et à la compréhension mutuelle.
Milan est un lieu idéal pour jouer un rôle majeur dans cette nouvelle Renaissance. C’est ici, au palais de Ludovic Sforza, qu’une jeune et brillante poétesse, Cecilia Gallerani, dont le portrait nous est familier grâce à la « Dame à l’hermine », initia Léonard de Vinci à ses discussions musicales, poétiques et philosophiques – une rencontre qui marqua sans conteste l’ascension de Léonard de Vinci au rang de génie.
Pour lui, comme pour le penseur de la Renaissance Nicolas de Cues, dont les écrits furent lus ici, il nous faut apprendre à déchiffrer le macrocosme invisible à travers le microcosme. Le monde a besoin de nouvelles Cecilia et de nouveaux Léonard.
Mettons fin dès maintenant au « siècle de la supercherie » en organisant ensemble, grâce à des concours artistiques de grande qualité, une nouvelle Renaissance qui célèbre la beauté et la dignité intérieure.
Tel est le défi que nous devons relever aujourd’hui.
Merci.
AUDIO: Piero della Francesca at Milan Brera Pinacoteca
Access AUDIO from pdf: click here.
Audio recorded on Sunday March 22, 2026, during my visit to the Brera Pinacoteca of Milan.
For the historical context and an indepth analysis, see my article « The Egg without a Shadow of Piero della Francesca » (Fidelio, 2000)
AUDIO : Raphael’s cartoon for « The School of Athens » in Milan
AUDIO:
from the pdf file, click on this LINK
Audio recorded during my visit at the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan, on March 20, 2026. For my full, in depth analysis of Raphael and his « School of Athens », see my article.
Karel Vereycken featured in Art Star Magazine
Garden of Argenteuil, a color engraving of Karel Vereycken, is featured in the March issue of ART STAR Magazine, The 2026 Guide to Remarkable Art (V. 1B, 2026).
Karel Vereycken shortlisted for award by Art&Color365
On March 19, 2026, franco-belgian painter engraver Karel Vereycken was informed that his « artwork has been shortlisted » for the 2026 Realism Competition of Art&Color365.
His work « will be included in both the print and digital versions » of the Early Spring issue of the bi-monthly print and digital art magazine Art&Colors365 as well as « featured in the online exhibition on our website for a full year. »
L’ombre de Vernadski dans la Sainte Anne de Léonard de Vinci
Par Karel Vereycken
En mars 1821, le poète anglais Percy Bysshe Shelley concluait son poème « Défense de la poésie » par ce concept visionnaire :
« Les poètes sont les hiérophantes d’une inspiration insoupçonnée, les miroirs des ombres gigantesques que l’avenir projette sur le présent, les mots qui expriment ce qu’ils ne comprennent pas, les trompettes qui sonnent pour la bataille, sans ressentir ce qu’elles inspirent, l’influence qui ne se laisse pas émouvoir, mais qui émeut. Les poètes sont les législateurs méconnus du monde. »
Nous vous proposons d’examiner ici, de ce point de vue, le chef-d’œuvre de Léonard de Vinci (1452-1519), « La Vierge à l’Enfant avec sainte Anne », actuellement au Louvre.
On ne se lasse jamais de contempler ce chef-d’œuvre. Le tableau représente sainte Anne, sa fille Marie et l’Enfant Jésus enlaçant un agneau sacrificiel, symbole de sa mission : libérer l’humanité du péché originel.
Léonard de Vinci n’a pas réalisé ce tableau pour un prince, un duc, un cardinal ou un pape, mais pour lui-même, et à ce titre, l’a légué en héritage à l’humanité.
Après avoir passé en revue les dernières recherches, Vincent Delieuvin, l’historien français du Louvre, est arrivé en 2000 à cette conclusion étonnante : Léonard salue le retour du régime républicain à Florence, dont Sainte-Anne était la protectrice.1
Si l’œuvre resta quasiment inachevée à sa mort, en 1519, on sait que Léonard de Vinci commença à y travailler en 1503 (il avait 51 ans), alors qu’il vivait à Florence. Le roi François Ier ne vola pas le tableau, mais en vola l’auteur, qui l’emporta avec lui en France pour le terminer.
Le spectateur est immédiatement saisi par un sens puissant de mouvement presque troublant, un sentiment d’amour suprême et de grande beauté. Si elle met en scène des figures des Saintes Écritures (sainte Anne, la Vierge Marie, le Christ) plutôt que d’illustrer une séquence liturgique particulière (par ailleurs inexistante), l’œuvre elle-même jaillit manifestement d’une profonde conception philosophique.
Je vais tenter de vous convaincre qu’il existe un « long arc de l’histoire », une cohérence intellectuelle entre des personnes et des esprits qui ne se sont jamais croisés et ne se sont jamais parlé, mais dont les intuitions et les avancées épistémologiques s’accordent.
Le chef-d’œuvre de Léonard de Vinci apparaît, à mon sens, comme une sorte de chaînon manquant entre la vision de Dieu et de la création de Nicolas de Cues (Cusanus) et le concept de « noosphère » de Vladimir Vernadski, en passant par l’idée de « cosmos » d’Alexander von Humboldt. De prime abord, cela peut paraître farfelu, mais permettez-moi de développer.
Une unité
Qu’est-ce qui peut donc unir ces quatre intellectuels de génie, Cusanus, Léonard de Vinci, Alexander von Humboldt et Vernadski ? Tous quatre étaient convaincus que l’univers est un ensemble vivant, un et harmonieux.
Dans son traité De la docte ignorance (1440), le cardinal allemand Nicolas de Cues (1401-1464), penseur et acteur majeur des grands conciles œcuméniques ainsi que de la Renaissance italienne et européenne, part de ce symbole : Dieu est le « maximum absolu » et l’unité parfaite (unio). Dans cette unité, toutes les distances, divisions et contradictions se changent et se fondent en union. L’Univers est l’image contractée de cette unité et de ce maximum absolu. Comme un miroir, il est le maximum « contracté » car il ne comprend pas toutes choses, mais seulement toutes choses hors de Dieu, toutes choses créées. Le philosophe emploie les termes complicatio (enveloppement) et explicatio (déploiement) pour expliquer que toutes choses sont enveloppées en Dieu (la source) et déployées dans le monde. Le monde, le cosmos et le temps géologique sont le déploiement de l’unité de Dieu.
S’engageant sur la voie ouverte par Cues, Léonard de Vinci (1452-1519) affirme avec force : « Comprenez que tout est lié à tout. » Pour lui, progresser signifie unifier différents domaines comme l’art, l’anatomie et l’ingénierie en une compréhension globale et cohérente. L’artiste-ingénieur invite ses contemporains à apprendre à percevoir les liens qui unissent la nature, l’art, la science et l’âme humaine. L’observation permet à Léonard de découvrir les causes invisibles au-delà des effets visibles, et d’imaginer et tester des hypothèses créatives. Il postule notamment que le corps humain pourrait être une version miniature (microcosme) de la Terre (macrocosme), en observant que la ramification des vaisseaux sanguins chez l’homme reflète les affluents des rivières, tout comme les mouvements du corps imitent les marées. À ses yeux, la Terre est un organisme vivant doté d’une « chair » (le sol), d’« os » (les strates rocheuses) et de « sang » (les veines d’eau). Il étudie le vol des oiseaux et les mouvements de l’eau, convaincu que les deux obéissent à une même physique des fluides. L’art est une science et la science est un art, tous deux étant des outils pour comprendre les lois fondamentales du monde. Pour Léonard de Vinci, les peintres doivent posséder le cosmos tout entier dans leur esprit et leurs mains pour refléter véritablement la beauté, l’harmonie et la complexité de la nature. Pour lui, le mouvement est l’essence même d’un univers vivant en pleine expansion. Il étudie les motifs en spirale présents dans toute chose, des fleurs aux boucles des cheveux en passant par les tourbillons de l’eau, pour tenter de comprendre comment la force vitale engendre les différentes formes. Enfin, il considère la stagnation comme une forme de déclin, notant que « le fer rouille par manque d’usage » et que « l’inaction sape la vigueur de l’esprit ».
Le naturaliste et révolutionnaire allemand Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) s’est lui aussi efforcé de comprendre comment divers phénomènes naturels, malgré leur apparente indépendance, forment un système harmonieux et unifié. Il évoque un « système terrestre » où le climat, la flore, la faune et la vie humaine sont interdépendants. Humboldt croit qu’il existe un « lien intrinsèque » entre le général et le particulier, ce qui lui permet de percevoir l’interconnexion entre les différentes régions et les climats. Dans son œuvre ultime en cinq volumes, Cosmos (1845-1858), il décrit la nature comme un « souffle de vie » et un « tout organique », et voit l’univers entier – physique et céleste – comme un « système magnifiquement ordonné et harmonieux ». À l’instar de Cusanus et de Léonard de Vinci, il soutient qu’une compréhension scientifique des processus naturels accroît notre appréciation de leur beauté.
Pour le géophysicien russo-ukrainien Vladimir Vernadski (1863-1945), la vie est éternelle et indissociable du cosmos, et non de la seule Terre. Il voit la matière vivante comme un « phénomène cosmique » apparu ailleurs ou ayant toujours existé, façonnant l’environnement chimique des planètes. La biosphère entoure la Terre comme une « enveloppe saturée de vie », où organismes vivants et matière inerte interagissent constamment, indissociablement et de manière dynamique. L’étape suivante de l’évolution est décrite comme la transition de la biosphère à la « noosphère », où l’activité rationnelle humaine, la science et la technologie deviennent la principale force géologique qui façonne la planète. Vernadski était convaincu que l’avenir de l’humanité dépendait de la reconnaissance de cette unité, suggérant que la pensée humaine était un prolongement naturel des processus géologiques et cosmiques.
Regardons maintenant le tableau
C’est avec ce « long arc de l’histoire » à l’esprit que le spectateur attentif peut déceler l’ombre de Vernadski dans la Sainte Anne de Léonard.
Décryptage
- L’arrière-plan du tableau montre des crêtes abruptes à l’aspect préhistorique, inspirées des études de Léonard sur les Dolomites et les Alpes. Ce paysage aride et rocailleux, presque lunaire, a été qualifié par les historiens de « fantastique » ou de « métaphysique ». Comme en témoignent ses carnets, Léonard s’attachait à représenter les mouvements « invisibles », non seulement des âmes, mais aussi des phénomènes physiques tels que le temps, et plus particulièrement le temps géologique. Comment les montagnes se sont-elles formées, par exemple ? Pour d’autres, ce paysage « mort », ou lunaire, de l’arrière-plan – ce que Vernadski appellerait la « lithosphère » – servirait uniquement à mettre en valeur les autres éléments de la composition.
- Devant ce paysage, à droite, se dresse un arbre, premier indice de la biosphère mais simple étape d’un processus évolutif de développement accéléré du cosmos.
- En-dessous, l’agneau (symbole religieux du sacrifice du Christ) représenterait une forme supérieure de conscience de cette biosphère.
- Apparaît alors Jésus qui, dans son incarnation d’enfant humain, ne représente qu’une sorte de conscience naïve, simple potentiel de son développement ultérieur.
- La Vierge Marie est peinte dans une position paradoxale, illustrant parfaitement ce que le penseur américain Lyndon LaRouche appelait « mid-motion-change », c’est-à-dire un instant ambigu d’indécision entre des mouvements d’apparence contraires. Le geste majestueux, aimant et protecteur de Marie, et son étreinte de Jésus coïncident avec son désir profond de lui accorder toute la liberté de mouvement nécessaire à l’accomplissement de sa mission sacrée.
- Sainte Anne, au sommet, animée d’une joie divine, contemple en souriant le geste gracieux de sa fille Marie et l’amour qu’elle porte au Christ. Elle se réjouit d’être en quelque sorte l’âme « noosphérique » consciente d’un Cosmos divin et vivant, où le créateur conçoit sans cesse des formes nouvelles pour sa création et des degrés de conscience toujours plus élevés de sa propre nature créatrice. Les alignements circulaires des chaînes de montagne lunaires résonnent visuellement avec les anneaux harmonieux dessinés par les bras et les vêtements dans une spirale en cascade.
Même des auteurs comme Viviane Forrester, dont l’œuvre2 est polluée par de pernicieuses interprétations modernistes et freudiennes, et qui prétendent à tort que nous sommes leurrés par la mansuétude « bébête » de Marie (p. 19), reconnaissent néanmoins intuitivement qu’il y a quelque chose de très particulier dans cette œuvre, une sorte d’unité que l’écrivaine qualifie, faute de trouver un mot plus adéquat, d’« organique ».
Lorsqu’on découvre ces figures, écrit-elle, « on perçoit bien qu’il s’agit d’organismes vivants au sein d’un paysage, organisme vivant. Dee l’organique dans de l’organique. » (p. 12)
Ce moment organique, observe-t-elle, apparaît ici au spectateur comme un « moment figé » d’un « mouvement transitoire ».
« Leur prochaine respiration, celle qui suivre, semble plus importante, vitale, plus en suspens que toute intrigue, tout récit. Et leur présence tangible, fragile, s’apparente à celle des montagnes, qui respirent aussi. » (p. 13)
La naissance d’un génie
dite La Dame à l’hermine (1489).
En insistant excessivement sur le fait que Léonard de Vinci était un génie « autodidacte », on a en quelque sorte négligé les recherches sur les influences intellectuelles qu’il a subies.
Sa première expérience fut son apprentissage chez Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-1488), dont l’atelier florentin était calqué sur celui de son tuteur, le sculpteur érudit Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455), où les élèves étudiaient l’astronomie, la poésie, l’architecture, la sculpture, la peinture, la fonte du bronze, la métallurgie, la chimie, l’anatomie et lisaient les classiques.
Puis, à Milan, en tant que peintre de cour, Léonard fut « adopté » par la jeune Cecilia Gallerani (1473-1536), maîtresse favorite (mais non la dernière) du duc Ludovico Sforza, connu sous le nom de Lodovico Il Moro, duc de Milan.
Elle naquit dans une famille nombreuse de Sienne, dont le père, Fazio Gallerani, n’était pas noble mais occupa plusieurs postes importants à la cour de Milan, notamment celui d’ambassadeur auprès des républiques de Florence et de Lucques.
Cécilia reçut, avec ses six frères, une éducation en latin et en littérature. Elle est surtout connue pour avoir inspiré à Léonard de Vinci le tableau « La Dame à l’hermine » (vers 1489), une œuvre où le sens de mouvement prime déjà sur la représentation statique. On raconte que, lors d’une séance de pose, elle invita Léonard à rejoindre le cercle littéraire qu’elle animait au Palazzo Carmagnola, où elle présidait des débats intellectuels avec des philosophes, des poètes et des musiciens.
supposé être un portrait de Bernardo Bellincioni.
Composant elle-même des œuvres musicales et poétiques, prononçant des discours en latin et en italien dès l’âge de 16 ans, réputée pour son esprit et son érudition, elle est considérée comme l’une des femmes les plus cultivées de la Renaissance italienne.
Bien que la quasi-totalité de son œuvre ait disparu, elle reste dans les mémoires comme une figure majeure de la langue italienne, grâce à sa maîtrise de la littérature et de la poésie. Le poète de cour Bernardo Bellincioni (1452-1492), ami de Léonard, loua son talent littéraire, allant jusqu’à la comparer à la célèbre poétesse grecque antique Sappho, qui aurait inspiré Platon.
La Cour de Milan et ses mécènes ont également attiré et favorisé d’autres artistes et scientifiques, parmi lesquels l’architecte Donato Bramante, le mathématicien et ami de Léonard de Vinci, Luca Pacioli, la duchesse lettrée Béatrice d’Este, le poète Bernardo Bellincioni et l’éducateur humaniste Francesco Filelfo.
Cecilia Gallerani a-t-elle initié Léonard de Vinci aux idées de Cusanus ? Nous l’ignorons, mais elle en avait indubitablement aussi bien les capacités que l’opportunité.
Le {Codex Trivulzianus} de Léonard (1487-1490), compilé à Milan à cette époque, marque un tournant. Jusqu’à là, l’artiste avait souvent soutenu avec véhémence que l’art de la peinture était supérieur à la celui de la poésie. Or, après avoir fréquenté Cecilia, le {Codex Trivulzianus} témoigne du fait qu’il souhaitait améliorer drastiquement sa capacité littéraire, jusqu’à là plutôt modeste, en dressant de longues listes de mots savants, y compris de termes latins, tirés de sources lexicales et grammaticales faisant autorité. Il aurait considéré cela comme une condition préalable qui lui permettrait de décrire avec une précision scientifique les phénomènes qu’il allait découvrir par la suite.
Une vingtaine d’années après la mort de Léonard de Vinci, l’orfèvre et sculpteur Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571) aurait déclaré :
« Je ne voudrais manquer de rapporter les paroles que j’entendis dire au roi à son propos. Le roi dit qu’il ne pensait pas qu’il eût existé un homme qui en sût tant que Léonard, non seulement en sculpture, peinture et architecture, mais aussi en philosophie où il excellait. »3
Comme le conclut un chercheur :
« L’unité épistémologique de Léonard de Vinci permet d’accéder à une perspective supérieure. Elle accroît non seulement notre propension à une véritable empathie et à une compréhension profonde (essentielles dans la société pluraliste actuelle), mais aussi notre accès à une forme de liberté sociale et intellectuelle. C’est une méthode pour acquérir une compréhension plus globale de la condition humaine ; en bref, pour recevoir une véritable éducation. »
Le monde a besoin de nouvelles Cécilia Gallerani et de nouveaux Léonard de Vinci. Êtes-vous prêt à relever ce défi ?
- Vincent Delieuvin, La Vierge, l’Enfant Jésus et sainte Anne, dit La Sainte Anne, site internet du Louvre.
https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010066107 ↩︎ - Au Louvre avec Viviane Forrester, La Vierge et l’Enfant avec sainte Anne, dossier établi par Cécile Scailliérez, Service culturel du Louvre, Symogy, Editions d’Art, Paris, 2000. ↩︎
- Marianne Tregouët, {Cellini à la cour de François Ier (1540-1545) : les mécanismes d’une disgrâce}, Déc. 2024, HAL Id: dumas-04797814 https://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/dumas-04797814v1 ↩︎
Karel Vereycken art featured in Visual Art Journal
The February 2026 issue #47 of Visual Art Magazine contains a two page feature with two works and a statement on the work of Franco-Belgian painter engraver and historian Karel Vereycken.
The entire magazine can be seen here:
https://visualartjournal.com/2026/02/01/issue-47-february-2026/
A print copy can be ordered here.
Website:
https://visualartjournal.com/
Instagram:
@visualartjournal
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/visual-art-journal-official/
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, political commentator and pacifist
Five centuries after his birth, the publication of new research seems (finally) to do justice to the great Flemish painter « Pieter Bruegel the Jolly » , known as the Elder (1525-1569).
Until now, it was all too common to hear him described as « an unclassifiable figure. » In 2024, art historian Mónica Ann Walker Vadillo did not hesitate to write in the History section of the newspaper Le Monde that, since Bruegel painted peasant feasts and weddings, art critics « came to regard him as an unrefined man and disdainfully nicknamed him ‘Bruegel the Peasant,' » while expressing surprise that so many « academics, humanists, and wealthy businessmen—who appreciated his work and collected his paintings » associated with him.
Fall of the Rebel Angels
In 2014, Tine Luk Meganck ‘s book, « Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Fall of the Rebel Angels. Art, knowledge and Politics on the Eve of the Dutch Revolt », especially with the last sentence of her title, had nevertheless reopened the debate on the political dimension of his work.
Meganck ventured a highly improbable hypothesis regarding the painting The Fall of the Rebel Angels (1562, Brussels Museum): the jealous angels, whom God punishes for conspiring against him, are supposed to represent the alliance of nobles, the middle classes, and the common people, led by William the Silent against the rule of the Spanish Empire. Consequently, the commissioner of the work, according to the expert, was most likely the famous Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, one of the advisors to the regent Margaret of Parma and a fervent supporter of the persecution of heretics.
We have documented in an article why this interpretation seems unacceptable to us, as Cardinal Granvelle, a member of the « secret government, » was universally hated by the humanists of the time for his blind zeal in endorsing all the crimes of his masters.
Furthermore, no tangible proof exists that he commissioned any work from Bruegel. Certainly, he owned some, but apart from a « Flight into Egypt » (1563), a work devoid of any controversy, and a « View of the Bay of Naples, » a beautiful study inspired by drawings made during Bruegel’s trip to Italy, Granvelle was far from being « one of the greatest collectors » of Bruegel’s works, as is often repeated.
Landjuweel
That being said, the important contribution of Meganck’s book, let’s acknowledge it, was the recognition of the decisive influence of the Chambers of Rhetoric and the Antwerp Landjuweel of 1561, for understanding Bruegel’s visual language.
My friend, the late American art critic Michael Frances Gibson, had mentioned this possibility to me during an interview this author conducted with him.
He discusses this in his book The Carrying of the Cross (Editions Noêsis, Paris 1996), which was used in 2011 for the quite innovative film « Bruegel, the Mill and the Cross ».
In August 1561, Antwerp, where Bruegel resided, hosted an exceptional celebration, the Landjuweel, or national competition of the Chambers of Rhetoric.
In practice, the Antwerp Chamber « De Violieren« , in charge of organizing a festival that cost the city one hundred thousand crowns, operated as the literary division of the Guild of Saint Luke, the corporation that brought together painters, engravers, illustrators, architects, sculptors, cartographers, goldsmiths and printers.
It was there that people read in Flemish as well as in Latin or French, Plato, Homer, Petrarch, Erasmus and Rabelais, both during private gatherings and often, in public.
The first Bible in French? Printed in Antwerp in 1535 by the French humanist Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples (1450-1536), who published the first translations of the complete works of Nicholas of Cusa in Paris in 1514, three years before the publication, in the French capital, of the first edition of Erasmus‘s In Praise of Folly.
The Landjuweel of Antwerp stands historically as one of the most remarkable cultural renaissance events in European history. 2000 rhetoricians on horseback, from 10 cities, passed under 40 triumphal arches to the strident sounds of fifes, entering a city in full celebration. For a whole month, orators and poets, songwriters and actors competed without pausing for breath. Citizen’s were invited on every streetcorner to participate in polyphonic madrigals and chorusses. 5000 artists entertained close to a 100,000 viewers !
Bruegel had to follow them all the more since his dear friend Hans Frankaert (1520-1584), his friend and master Peeter Baltens (1527-1584), very well connected with the great local financiers who preferred commerce to war, as well as his first patron, the engraver Hieronymus Cock (1518-1570), were all involved in the organization of this event whose theme was peace and, two centuries before Kant and Schiller, this burning philosophical question: « What leads man most towards the arts? » This, then, was the bubbling cauldron of urban culture in which Bruegel was immersed from his beginnings.
Moreover, as Belgian historian Leen Huet details in her sumptuous biography of the artist (first published in Dutch in 2016 by Polis, then in French by CFC in Brussels in 2021), when he crossed the Alps, Bruegel was probably accompanied by the painter Maarten de Vos (1532-1603) and the cartographer Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598), a close friend of Christophe Plantin, the head of the largest printing house in Antwerp, the team having thousands of addresses of collectors in connection with the printing house Les Quatre Vents of Jérôme Cock, in Antwerp.
The « Bruegel Code »
The image of Bruegel as a political commentator, deliberately obfuscating his message to thwart the regime’s Gestapo agents who were lying in wait for him, and embracing the Erasmian philosophy of the Landjuweel to defend peace and mutual understanding, is further developed by the classical historian Leo Spaepen, whose recent book, Pieter Bruegel de oude, politiek commentator en pacifist. De Bruegel Code (published in Dutch by MER Books, 2025), has stirred enthusiasm.
A good pedagogue, Spaepen establishes a kind of code for deciphering, or at least fruitfully approaching, Bruegel’s visual language. Escaping the Aristotelian confines, the aim is to immediately discard formal and symbolic representations in favor of what I would call a metaphorical approach.
Narrative A and B
Each painting contains a « narrative A » and a « narrative B. » The former typically reflects a concern shared by the humanist and Erasmian community regarding the socio-political events of the time, where corruption and violent Spanish repression brought the Hispano-Burgundian Netherlands to the brink of revolt. The « narrative B » often depicts a scene from the Bible or scripture.
As with any metaphor, the paradox arising from the analogy between narrative A and B brings forth, not on the canvas but in the viewer’s mind, a range of clues allowing them to grasp where the painter intends to lead them.
Spaepen, whose courage, rigor, and audacity deserve high praise, has sufficiently delved into the political and cultural history of Bruegel’s era to formulate compelling hypotheses that illuminate his major works. By testing this cognitive approach, painting by painting, the author generates not a scholarly compendium of facts or evidence, but an extremely interesting « gestalt » of the painter, whose true genius has often been denied recognition. It is therefore impossible, in a simple article like this, to reproduce the full richness of this approach.
« Mad Meg »
Let us nevertheless look at an emblematic work by Bruegel, known by its nickname, Dulle Griet (« Margot the Enraged » or « Mad Meg » ), a work painted in 1563, not to please a patron, but to provoke discussions with his relatives during meals at his home, as was the custom at the time.
The painting is striking in its contradictions. In the foreground, against a backdrop of burning cityscapes, a woman, mad with rage, sword in hand, carries a basket filled with jewels and precious metalwork. Behind her, a cohort of unarmed women bravely strives to subdue and repel an army of monsters and devils.
Finally, at the intersection of the painting’s diagonals, a strange creature appears, reminiscent of Hieronymus Bosch ‘s Garden of Earthly Delights. A man carrying a large bubble on his back shakes his backside, from which silver coins fall, which some women hastily gather up.
As for narrative B, we find roughly the image that Bruegel had developed in a drawing used for a 1557 engraving representing one of the deadly sins, here rage ( Ira in Latin), again represented by a giant woman, with the subtitle: « Rage swells the lips and sours the character. It troubles the mind and blackens the blood. »
Spaepen also picks up on (p. 131) a great find by Leen Huet. The historian discovered that during the Landjuweel of Antwerp in 1561, the chamber of rhetoric of Mechelen had mentioned a « Griete die den roof haelt voor den helle » (a girl who goes to plunder hell), a figure perhaps taken from a play that is now lost.
Huet also mentions (p. 35) the Flemish proverb that says of an old harpy that she « could go and plunder hell and come back safe and sound. » At the same time, Huet notes (p. 48), the author Sartorius , in a collection of adages inspired by Erasmus, states a saying similar in spirit to the Dulle Griet sign:
« One woman alone makes a racket, two women cause much trouble, three women gather only to trade for an annual market, four women lead to strife, five women form an army, and against six women, Satan himself has no weapon to fight them. »
In reality, the status of urban women from the 15th century onwards in Flanders, with the beguinages, and especially in Brabant in the 16th century, was one of the most advanced in Europe1, probably explaining in part the concerns of some members of the male gender in the face of the growing power of women.
Granvelle
But Spaepen, a good observer, exonerates Bruegel from this kind of masculinist reaction by bringing back the reality of narrative A, the current political situation.
The painter, Spaepen believes, is denouncing here Cardinal Granvelle , zealous advisor to the regent Margaret of Parma, a woman torn between the general interest and submission to the tyranny of the Catholic Church, whose dogmas were instrumentalized by Madrid to plunder the country in order to repay the colossal debt of Charles V and Philip II to the Fugger bankers.
Personally, I thought for a moment that Bruegel had invented for the occasion an 8th deadly sin, « incitement to war » (Oorlogstokerij), but I am probably too much in the present.
In August 1561, disregarding Granvelle’s advice, Margaret had authorized the Guild of Saint Luke and the Violieren to organize the Antwerp Landjuweel to promote peace and mutual understanding. But immediately afterward, she yielded to pressure from Madrid by forbidding the publication of the proceedings of the Chambers of Rhetoric, which were accused of having united the entire country against the Emperor.
In 1563, the year Bruegel painted his Dulle Griet, the Council of Trent decided to curb polyphonic art by restoring the primacy of the sung text in music and prohibiting any ambiguity in a painting, linked to a role of propaganda, exactly as Granvelle wished.
In the painting « Mad Meg, » the strange creature in the center, draped in a red cloak, could very well be Cardinal Granvelle himself.
As Spaepen reminds us, Granvelle had just established a vast network of informants to hunt down heretics « even in the toilets. »
This targeted all those—Lutherans, Calvinists, Erasmians, or Anabaptists—who challenged the predatory grip of the regime. And yet, the money « shat out » by Granvelle is being recovered by women ready to plunder hell! Bruegel, not exactly kind to Mad Meg (Marguerite of Parma), could therefore be expressing his horror at this regent who has lost her mind, and especially at the idea that Flemish women, who had become so free and educated, could end up as informers for a totalitarian regime!
Familia Caritatis
Spaepen (p. 194) documents the strong influence exerted on Bruegel (who was not necessarily a member of the group) by the Familia Caritatis (Family of Charity), a philosophical and religious movement founded and led by Hendrik Niclaes (1502-1570), a prophetic and charismatic figure advocating peace and tolerance about whom little is known but who undoubtedly appeared to many, without reaching his wisdom and erudition, as a kind of successor to Erasmus.
Many humanists and a number of Bruegel’s acquaintances were in contact with this movement which, passing through England, would dissolve into the Quaker revolt against the Anglican Church.2
Plantin, considered the official printer of the Spanish regime, had the Familia Caritatis booklets (deemed heretical by the regime) printed (at night), with initial financial assistance for his printing press from Niclaes, himself a merchant. Niclaes’s major work, Terra Pacis, denounces the « Blind leading the Blind, » a theme also found in the work of Quinten Matsys‘s son (who fled the persecution), and later in Bruegel.
Niclaes draws upon Socrates and the philosophy of the Brethren of the Common Life , for whom selfless love (agape or caritas) should be the driving force of humankind. Another conviction he holds is that life is « a pilgrimage of the soul. »
As in the landscapes of Joachim Patinir, Homo Viator must constantly detach himself from earthly matters and move on. Through his free he must seek union with God by resisting earthly temptations. Inner peace—with oneself, with one’s conscience, and with the divine will—is the foundation of peace on Earth, an ideal that also clearly inspired the painter.
This is the true story, that of a great political commentator and resistance fighter of his time, a painter intellectually and spiritually committed to peace.
NOTES:
- See on this subject Myriam Greilsammer, L’envers du tableau : Mariage et maternité en Flandre médiévale , Armand Colin, 1990, as well as this author’s article on the Landjuweel. ↩︎
- These included the printers Christoffel Plantin and John Gailliart; the humanists Abraham Ortelius, Justus Lipsius, Andreas Masius, Goropius Becanus, and Benito Arias Montano; the poets Peeter Heyns, Jan van der Noot, Lucas d’Heere, Filips Galle, and Joris Hoefnagel; the theologian Hubert Duifhuis; the writer Dirck Volkertsz; Coornhert (right-hand man of William the Silent); the « familists » Daniel van Bombergen, Emanuel van Meteren, and Johan Radermacher; and the Antwerp merchants Marcus Perez and Ferdinando Ximines. ↩︎
Pieter Bruegel l’ancien, commentateur politique et pacifiste
Cinq siècles après sa naissance, la publication de nouvelles recherches semblent (enfin) rendre justice au grand peintre flamand « Pierre Bruegel le drôle », dit l’ancien (1525-1569).
Jusqu’ici, on entendait trop souvent dire de lui qu’il « apparaît comme une figure inclassable ». En 2024, l’historienne de l’art Mónica Ann Walker Vadillo n’hésite pas à écrire dans les pages Histoire du quotidien Le Monde que, vu que Bruegel a peint des fêtes paysannes, les critiques d’art « en sont arrivés à le considérer comme un homme peu raffiné et l’ont surnommé avec dédain ‘Bruegel le Paysan’ », tout en s’étonnant qu’il ait fréquenté bon nombre « d’universitaires, d’humanistes et des hommes d’affaires fortunés – qui appréciaient son œuvre et collectionnaient ses tableaux ».
Chute des anges rebelles
En 2014, le livre de Tine Luk Meganck, « Pieter Bruegel, la chute des anges rebelles. Art, savoir et politique à l’aube de la révolte des Gueux », surtout avec la dernière phrase de son titre, avait néanmoins rouvert le débat sur la dimension politique de son œuvre.
Meganck s’y risquait à une hypothèse hautement improbable à propos du tableau La chute des anges rebelles (1562, Musée de Bruxelles) : les anges jaloux, que Dieu punit pour avoir conspiré contre lui, représenteraient l’alliance des nobles, des classes moyennes et du peuple, menée par Guillaume le Taciturne contre la férule de l’Empire espagnol.
Du coup, le commanditaire de l’œuvre, toujours selon l’experte, serait probablement le fameux cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, un des conseillers de la régente Marguerite de Parme et fervent partisan de la chasse aux hérétiques.
Nous avons documenté dans un autre article pourquoi cette interprétation nous semble irrecevable, le cardinal de Granvelle, un des membres du « gouvernement secret », étant universellement détesté par les humanistes de l’époque pour son zèle aveugle endossant tous les crimes de ses maîtres.
De plus, aucune preuve tangible n’existe qu’il ait commandité une quelconque œuvre à Bruegel. Certes il en possédait, mais, à part une « Fuite en Egypte » (1563), œuvre dépourvue de la moindre polémique, et une « Vue sur la baie de Naples », belle étude inspirée des dessins réalisés lors de son voyage en Italie, Granvelle était loin d’être « un des plus grands collectionneurs » d’œuvres de Bruegel, comme on le répète un peu partout.
Landjuweel
Ceci étant dit, l’apport nouveau et important du livre de Meganck, c’est (on l’avait oublié) la reconnaissance de l’influence déterminante, pour comprendre le langage visuel de Bruegel, des Chambres de rhétorique et du Landjuweel d’Anvers de 1561.
Mon ami le regretté critique d’art américain Michael Gibson m’avait parlé de cette piste lors d’un entretien que j’avais réalisé avec lui. Il l’évoque dans son livre Le portement de croix (Editions Noêsis, Paris 1996), qui servira en 2011 à la réalisation du film « Bruegel, le moulin et la croix ».
En 1561, Anvers, où Bruegel résidait, se fit le siège d’une réjouissance exceptionnelle, le Landjuweel, ou concours national des Chambres de rhétorique.
Or, la Chambre anversoise « La Giroflée » (De Violieren), chargée de l’organisation d’une fête qui coûta cent mille couronnes à la ville, était en quelque sorte la division littéraire de la Guilde de Saint-Luc, qui regroupait les peintres, graveurs, sculpteurs, cartographes, orfèvres et imprimeurs.
C’est là qu’on lisait en flamand aussi bien qu’en latin ou en français, Platon, Homère, Pétrarque, Erasme et Rabelais. La première Bible en français ? Imprimée à Anvers en 1535 par Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples, qui publia les premières traductions de l’œuvre complète de Nicolas de Cues à Paris en 1514, trois ans avant la parution, dans la même ville, de la première édition de L’éloge de la folie d’Erasme.
Le Landjuweel d’Anvers fut une fête grandiose. Venus de dix cités, deux mille rhétoriciens à cheval, passant par quarante arcs de triomphe, aux stridences des fifres, pénétrèrent dans une ville en fête. Tout un mois durant, orateurs et poètes, chansonniers et acteurs concoururent sans reprendre haleine.
Bruegel dut les suivre d’autant plus que son cher ami Hans Frankert, son ami et maître Peeter Baltens, très introduit auprès des grands financiers locaux qui préféraient le commerce à la guerre, ainsi que son premier patron, le graveur Jérôme Cock, furent tous impliqués dans l’organisation de cet événement dont le thème était la paix et, deux siècles avant Kant et Schiller, cette brûlante interrogation philosophique : « Qu’est-ce qui conduit le plus l’homme vers les arts ? » Voilà donc la marmite bouillonnante de culture citadine dans laquelle Bruegel fut plongé dès ses débuts.
Par ailleurs, comme le détaille l’historienne Leen Huet, dans sa somptueuse biographie de l’artiste (parue d’abord en néerlandais en 2016 chez Polis, puis en français chez CFC à Bruxelles en 2021), lorsqu’il traversa les Alpes, Bruegel était probablement accompagné par le peintre Maarten de Vos et le cartographe Abraham Ortelius, ami proche de Christophe Plantin, le patron de la plus grande imprimerie d’Anvers, l’équipe disposant de milliers d’adresses de collectionneurs en relation avec l’imprimerie Les Quatre Vents de Jérôme Cock, à Anvers.
Le « Bruegel code »
L’image d’un Bruegel commentateur politique, brouillant volontairement son message pour déjouer les gestapistes du régime qui le guettaient, s’inscrivant dans la philosophie toute érasmienne du Landjuweel pour défendre la paix et la compréhension mutuelle, est encore plus étoffée par l’historien Leo Spaepen, dont le livre récent, Pieter Bruegel de oude, politiek commentator en pacifist. De Bruegel Code (publié en néerlandais chez MER Books, 2025), fait sensation.
Bon pédagogue, Spaepen y établit une sorte de code permettant de déchiffrer, ou du moins d’aborder fructueusement, le langage visuel bruegélien. S’échappant du bocal aristotélicien, il s’agit d’écarter d’emblée les représentations formelles et symboliques au bénéfice d’une approche que je qualifierais de métaphorique.
Narratif A et B
Dans chaque tableau, il y a un « narratif A » et un « narratif B ». Le premier traduit généralement une préoccupation partagée par la communauté humaniste et érasmienne face aux événements socio-politiques de l’époque, où la corruption et la violente répression espagnole conduisent les Pays-Bas hispano-bourguignons au bord de la révolte. Le « narratif B » évoque souvent une scène tirée de la Bible ou des écritures.
Comme dans toute métaphore, le paradoxe résultant de la mise en analogie du narratif A avec le B fait émerger, non pas sur le tableau mais dans l’esprit du spectateur, une palette d’indications lui permettant de saisir vers quoi le peintre veut le conduire.
Spaepen, dont il faut saluer le courage, la rigueur et la témérité, a suffisamment approfondi l’histoire politique et culturelle de l’époque de Bruegel pour émettre des hypothèses probantes éclairant ses principales œuvres. En mettant à l’épreuve, dans un tableau après l’autre, cette approche cognitive, l’auteur génère non pas une somme savante de faits ou de preuves, mais une « gestalt » extrêmement intéressante du peintre, dont on a souvent refusé d’identifier le vrai génie. Impossible donc dans un simple article comme celui-ci de reproduire toute la richesse de la démarche.
Margot l’enragée
Regardons tout de même une œuvre emblématique de Bruegel, connue par son surnom, Dulle Griet (« Margot l’enragée » ou « Margot la folle »), une œuvre peinte en 1563, non pas pour satisfaire un commanditaire, mais pour susciter des discussions avec ses proches lors de repas chez lui, comme cela se faisait à l’époque.
Le tableau frappe par ses contradictions. Au premier plan, devant un paysage urbain en flammes, une femme folle de rage, l’épée à la main, emportant avec elle un panier rempli de bijoux et d’orfèvrerie. Derrière elle, une cohorte de femmes sans armes s’acharne courageusement à maîtriser et repousser une armée de monstres et de diables.
Enfin, à l’intersection des diagonales de l’œuvre, une étrange créature reprise du Jardin des délices de Jérôme Bosch. Un homme portant sur le dos une vaste bulle, touille son derrière d’où tombent des pièces d’argent que certaines femmes s’empressent de ramasser.
Pour ce qui est du narratif B, on retrouve en gros l’image que Bruegel avait élaborée dans un dessin ayant servi à une gravure de 1557 représentant l’un des péchés capitaux, ici la rage (Ira en latin), représentée là encore par une femme géante, avec pour sous-titre : « La rage bouffit les lèvres et aigrit le caractère. Elle trouble l’esprit et noircit le sang. »
Spaepen rebondit également (p. 131) sur une belle trouvaille de Leen Huet. L’historienne a découvert que lors du Landjuweel d’Anvers de 1561, la chambre de rhétorique de Malines avait évoqué une « Griete die den roof haelt voor den helle » (une fille qui va piller l’enfer), figure peut-être tirée d’une pièce de théâtre aujourd’hui perdue.
Huet évoque également (p. 35) le proverbe flamand disant d’une vieille harpie qu’elle « pourrait aller piller l’enfer et en revenir saine et sauve ». A la même époque, constate Huet (p. 48), l’auteur Sartorius, dans un recueil d’adages inspiré d’Erasme, énonce un dicton proche, dans son esprit, du panneau Dulle Griet :
« Une femme seule fait du boucan, deux femmes causent beaucoup de difficultés, trois femmes se rassemblent uniquement pour faire du commerce pour un marché annuel, quatre femmes mènent à la dispute, cinq femmes forment une armée et pour lutter contre six femmes, Satan lui-même n’a pas une arme pour les combattre. »
En réalité, le statut des femmes citadines dès le XVe siècle en Flandres, avec les béguinages, et surtout au Brabant au XVIe siècle, était l’un des plus avancés d’Europe1, expliquant sans doute en partie les inquiétudes de certains membres de la gent masculine face au pouvoir grandissant des femmes.
Granvelle petit esprit
Mais Spaepen, bon observateur, dédouane Bruegel de ce genre de réaction masculiniste en ramenant la réalité du narratif A, l’actualité politique du moment.
Le peintre, pense Spaepen, dénonce ici le cardinal de Granvelle, zélé conseiller de la régente Marguerite de Parme, une femme tiraillée entre l’intérêt général et la soumission à la tyrannie de l’Église catholique, dont les dogmes furent instrumentalisés par Madrid pour piller le pays afin de rembourser la dette colossale de Charles V et Philippe II envers les banquiers Fugger.
Personnellement, j’ai pensé un moment que Bruegel avait inventé pour l’occasion un 8e péché capital, « l’incitation à la guerre » (Oorlogstokerij), mais je suis sans doute trop dans le présent.
En août 1561, faisant fi de l’avis de Granvelle, Marguerite avait autorisé la Guilde de Saint-Luc et les Violieren à organiser le Landjuweel d’Anvers pour promouvoir la paix et la compréhension mutuelle. Mais immédiatement après, elle céda à la pression de Madrid en interdisant la publication des comptes-rendus des Chambres de rhétorique, accusées d’avoir coalisé tout le pays contre l’Empereur.
En 1563, année où Bruegel peint sa Margot, le Concile de Trente décide de brider l’art polyphonique en rétablissant dans la musique la primauté du texte chanté et en interdisant toute ambiguïté dans une peinture, reliée à un rôle de propagande, exactement comme le souhaitait Granvelle.
Dans le tableau « Margot l’enragée », l’étrange créature au centre, drapée d’un manteau rouge, pourrait donc bien être le cardinal de Granvelle en personne.
Comme le rappelle Spaepen, ce dernier venait d’instaurer un vaste système d’informateurs afin de traquer les hérétiques « jusque dans les toilettes ».
Cela visait tous ceux, luthériens, calvinistes, érasmiens ou anabaptistes, qui contestaient la mainmise prédatrice du régime.
Or, l’argent « chié » par Granvelle est récupéré par des femmes prêtes à aller piller l’enfer ! Pas tendre pour Margot l’enragée (Marguerite de Parme), Bruegel pourrait donc exprimer ici son effroi devant cette régente ayant perdu la tête, et surtout à l’idée que les Flamandes, devenues si libres et éduquées, puissent finir comme indics d’un régime totalitaire !
Familia Caritatis
Spaepen (p. 194) rend plausible, s’il n’y adhère pas explicitement, la forte influence exercée sur Bruegel par la Familia Caritatis (Famille de la charité), un courant philosophique et religieux fondé et dirigé par Hendrik Niclaes (1502-1570), figure prophétique et charismatique prônant la paix et la tolérance dont on sait assez peu mais apparaissant sans doute pour beaucoup, sans atteindre sa sagessse et son érudition, comme une sorte de successeur d’Erasme.
De nombreux humanistes et bon nombre des fréquentations de Bruegel étaient en contact avec ce courant qui, en passant par l’Angleterre, se dissoudra dans la révolte Quaker contre l’Église anglicane.2
Plantin, considéré comme l’imprimeur officiel du régime espagnol, faisait imprimer (de nuit) les livrets (qualifiés d’hérétiques par le régime) de la Familia Caritatis, moyennant une aide financière pour son imprimerie de la part de Niclaes. L’œuvre majeure de Niclaes, la Terra Pacis, dénonce les « aveugles guidant les aveugles », thème que l’on retrouve chez le fils de Quinten Matsys, puis chez Bruegel.
Niclaes reprend Socrate et la philosophie des Frères de la vie commune, pour qui c’est l’amour désintéressé (agape ou caritas) qui doit animer les hommes. Autre conviction : la vie est « un pèlerinage de l’âme ». Comme dans les paysages de Joachim Patinir, l’Homo Viator doit constamment, par son libre arbitre, pérégriner et chercher à s’unir à Dieu en se soustrayant aux tentations terrestres. La paix intérieure, avec soi-même, avec sa conscience et avec la volonté divine, est le fondement de la paix sur Terre, un idéal qui animait aussi très clairement le peintre.
Voici donc la véritable histoire, celle d’un grand commentateur politique et résistant de son temps, un peintre engagé intellectuellement et spirituellement pour la paix.
NOTES:
- Voir à ce sujet Myriam Greilsammer, L’envers du tableau : Mariage et maternité en Flandre médiévale, Armand Colin, 1990. ↩︎
- Il s’agit notamment des imprimeurs Christoffel Plantin, John Gailliart, des humanistes Abraham Ortelius, Justus Lipsius, Andreas Masius, Goropius Becanus, Benito Arias Montano, des poètes Peeter Heyns, Jan van der Noot, Lucas d’Heere, Filips Galle, Joris Hoefnagel, du théologien Hubert Duifhuis, de l’écrivain Dirck Volkertsz. Coornhert (bras droit de Guillaume le Taciturne), des « familistes » Daniel van Bombergen, Emanuel van Meteren, Johan Radermacher et des marchands anversois Marcus Perez et Ferdinando Ximines. ↩︎
The illusion of the Self
AUDIO: What Bruegel’s snow landscape teaches us about human fragility
OPEN WEBPAGE TO LISTEN TO AUDIO: CLICK HERE
Further information on Bruegel:
- Portement de croix: redécouvrir Bruegel grâce au livre de Michael Gibson (FR en ligne) + EN pdf (Fidelio).
- ENTRETIEN Michael Gibson: Pour Bruegel, le monde est vaste (FR en ligne) + EN pdf (Fidelio)
- Pierre Bruegel l’ancien, Pétrarque et le Triomphe de la Mort (FR en ligne) + EN online.
- A propos du film « Bruegel, le moulin et la croix » (FR en ligne).
- L’ange Bruegel et la chute du cardinal Granvelle (FR en ligne).
- AUDIO: Bruegel’s « Dulle Griet » (Mad Meg): we see her madness, but do we see ours? (EN)
- AUDIO: Bruegel’s Theodicy: The Fall of the Rebel Angels. (EN)
- AUDIO: Bruegel’s Fall of Empire (Icarus) (EN)
- AUDIO: What Bruegel’s snow landscape teaches us about human fragility (EN)