[In-Person/Online] Lecture by NIKI scholar-in-residence Eelco Nagelsmit, June 3 , 2025: ”Exhibiting evidentia through ‘Ancient Icons’ in seventeenth-century Franciscan polemics”
In the 1650s, Capuchin friar Carolus of Brussels responded to a ban on publishing about Franciscan dress by using visual art as evidence. He commissioned paintings based on medieval prototypes and published prints (Icones antiquae) to support his censored views. Eelco Nagelsmit’s project examines how such images served as historical proof in religious debates and whether they reflected emerging empirical methods or older traditions of legitimizing faith.