Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.37628
In book 2 chapter 37, Molanus deals with the question of impudence in painting. For this matter, Molanus refers to the Council of Trent that ordered that all impudence in art must be avoided. This leads him to conclude that according to Molanus artists should avoid anything impudent in their artworks and that artworks containing impudent features should be adjusted or removed. In several cases, he explains how one should handle impudent artworks, the painters that made them and what impudence can look like.
The fourth example of impudent iconography presented in the chapter regards the Last Supper. According to Molanus, this is often depicted by artists in a way that it seems a luxurious event full of profane pomp, which he labels as blasphemous since it contradicts the idea of Christ as a model of honesty and modesty.
“And what is more detestable than all the blasphemies, the unspeakable mystery of the Lord’s Supper is often rebutted in such a way that it does not seem to be separate from the symposium of the Azotus. Franciscus Horantius makes the same warning in his Loci Catholici contra Calvinum, book II, chapter 27: ‘We shall remember that the images of Christ are models of honesty and religion, and not those of immoderate luxury. Therefore modesty and restraint are to be reproved in them. What has the holy martyrs and confessors of Christ to do with this more than profane pomp?'”
“Et quod omnibus est execrabilius blasphemiis, ineffabile coenae Dominice mysterium graphide plerumque sic reffitur, ut ab azotorum symposio distare non videatur. Eadem est admonotio Francisci Horantii in locis Catholicis contra Calvinum scriptis, l.z.c. 27. Imagines, ait, Christi meminerimus completae honestatis ac religionis, non perditi luxus exemplaria esse. Quare omni pudore et verecundia adspersas esse magnopere convenit. Quid commune Virgini sanctissimae, pudicitiae numeris omnibus perfectae atque expletae, cum ornatu illo penè dixerum metriceo? qui sanctis martyribus, Christque Confessoribus, cum plus quam profano apparatu?”
Molanus 1996, 230.
