Zwischen Wunder und Vernunft : der Atlas Marianus des Jesuiten Wilhelm Gumppenberg

Abstract

Summary Between Miracle and Reason. The “Atlas Marianus” of the Jesuit Wilhelm Gumppenberg In 1657 the German Jesuit Wilhelm Gumppenberg published a book whose form and aim were original: the “Atlas Marianus”. This little work of handbook size was published in Latin and a year later (1658) in German by the Munich printer Jaecklin. Its purpose was to list all Marian shrines in Europe. These first Latin and German versions consisted of a hundred entries, illustrated by engravings each representing the venerated Virgin. In 1672 after long, hard work, the German Jesuit had collected 1200 entries that he gathered in a prestigious Latin edition. In the first Latin edition the author presented the shrines classified by country, as though he were drawing the outlines of a Europe placed under the protection of the Virgin. In the last and most important edition of 1672, his project assembled 1200 shrines from around the world, which were sorted into twelve sections, each one containing a hundred entries. To make th...