“Per aspera ad astra”: Starry Heavens and Sidereal Metamorphosis in Jesuit Emblematics

Abstract

This article sheds new light on a series of Jesuit emblems, from both spiritual and cosmological perspectives, in which stars and starlit night skies figure prominently. The starting point is Ignatius of Loyola’s preferred devotional exercise, as Pedro Ribadeneyra recounts: the contemplation of stars. Given Ignatius’s importance in this exercise, they are recurring motifs in Jesuit emblematics. Considering this exercise in the context of the classical definition of human beings as contemplators of heaven, I will provide an interpretive framework based on anthropology, epistemology, and ethics. I argue that stellar imagery draws on three closely intertwined key elements: firstly, the idea that God reveals himself through nature. Secondly, that knowledge of God is mediated by sight but achieved by reason, and finally, that the divine nature of stars and heavenly bodies made them worthy models to ponder and imitate. Stars mediate access to the knowledge of God and, as a poetic metaphor for deification, provide a model for cultivating one’s soul and conforming it to the divine. This article is part of the special issue of the Journal of Jesuit Studies on Jesuit emblems and emblematic edited by Walter S. Melion.