The Antwerp Polyglot Bible: Maps, Scholarship, and Exegesis
CHAPTER TWO THE ANTWERP POLYGLOT BIBLE: MAPS, SCHOLARSHIP, AND EXEGESIS The Council of Trent (1545–64), the founding event of the Counter- Reformation, also marked the beginning of the spectacular ecclesiasti- cal career of Benito Arias Montano (1527–98, Figure 1).1 Poet laureate, member of the Military Order of St. James, Doctor of Theology, Ori- entalist, and a leading biblical scholar, Montano was chosen by Bishop Martín Peréz de Ayala to join the Spanish delegation to the third ses- sion-period of the Council (1562–64), and won praise for his inter- ventions on communion and on marriage.2 For Montano, however, 1 An earlier version of this chapter appeared as “Sacred Geography, Antiquari- anism and Visual Erudition: Benito Arias Montano and the Maps in the Antwerp Polyglot Bible,” Imago Mundi 55, no. 1 (2003): 56–80. For a recent reevaluation of the historiographical tradition of Trent and the Counter-Reformation see John W. O’Malley, Trent and All That: Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era (Cam- bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000). On Montano’s activities in Trent see C. Gutiérrez, Españoles en Trento, Corpus Tridentinum Hispanicum, 1 (Valladolid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas Instituto “Jerónimo Zurita” Sección de Historia Moderna “Simancas”, 1951), 180–81, n. 366; Benito Arias Montano, Elu- cidationes in quatuor euangelia, Matthaei, Marci, Lucae & Johannis. Quibus accedunt eiusdem elucidationes in Acta Apostolorum (Antwerp: Plantin, 1575), 62; T. Gonzáles Carvajal, “Elogio histórico del Dr B. Arias Montano,” Memorias de la Real Academia de la Historia VII (1823): 1–199, esp. 32–36. 2 We still lack a full intellectual biography and a full correspondence edition for Montano, a fascinating and central figure of early modern scholarship, though more and more particular studies and modern editions of his works shed light on his work and thought.
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