Page - 58 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/01

John, some ten pages later the readers were presented with a second narrative image by Galle, this time showing Christ’s entombment (fig. 3). In the background the crosses of Golgotha are visible. The body of Jesus, which is being carried into the tomb by disciples, is at the center of the com- position, head and body enveloped in a linen cloth and wrapped in bandages, rendered in complete conformity with the figure of Lazarus. The caption ac- companying the image, again a quote from the Gospel of John (19:40), em- phasized the function of this second visualization as further confirmation of Chifflet’s argument: “Acceperunt corpus Jesu & ligaverunt illud linteis cum ar- omatibus, sicut mos est Iudaeis sepelire.” (“Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.” KJV) Not only the proximity of these illustrations within the volume but also their obvious stylistic closeness linked them to each other visually.26 The two compositions were completely different from all the other illustrations in the book; they worked on an anecdotal, emotionally engaging level, almost sug- gesting that the readers could witness the biblical scenes.27 While the par- adigmatic type of illustration of antiquitates within the treatise – that is of actual objects against a neutral background such as the Egyptian figure in the very beginning of the book28 – may be considered an example of the erudite man’s strategy of persuasion through authority, the syntagmatic tableaux pictorially conveying emotionally highly charged moments within the biblical narrative demonstrate the author’s intent to persuade through sensory sug- gestion. Given the way Chifflet selected sources and built his argument, the chapters briefly discussed here used what might broadly be characterized as a philolog- ically based approach. By contrast, the next part of the treatise concentrated at length on historical aspects of the supposed provenance of the shroud of 26 It seems noteworthy that the two engravings by Galle were reproduced four decades later, with a direct reference to Chifflet’s tract, in De Pileo, a work by Théophile Raynaud (1583–1663). The French theologian, a Jesuit like Chifflet’s brother Pierre-François Chifflet, was known as a learned man and author. Under the pseudonym Anselmus Solerius he published De Pileo (Amsterdam: Andreae Frisii, 1671), a fascinating volume on headgear in different times and cultures, which also discussed Chifflet’s argument on the funerary shrouds of Christ. 27 In chapter 28, De sepulchralibus Christi Domini fasciis distinctius, Chifflet returned to this point and gave it additional emphasis, also visually, by illustrating and commenting on the copy, by Peter Paul Rubens, of an antique representation of an infant wrapped in bandages and on the example of two depictions found in Rome that, though not technically refined, clearly documented how the dead body was cov- ered first with a shroud over the head and then with bandages wrapped around it. Cf. Chifflet 1624, 171–172. 28 Chifflet 1624, 46. The author made repeated use of illustrations of antiquitates, such as an ancient car- nelian intaglio or, in the concluding part of the treatise, a byzantine coin that will be briefly discussed below, cf. infra, fig. 5. 58 | Paola von Wyss-Giacosa www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/1