«Sine Cerere et Bacho friget Venus» (Terence, Eunuchus 732). Emblem books among Axular’s sources?

Abstract

In order to spread among his readers the message of the Catholic counter-reformist Church of the 17th century, Axular included several exempla and quotations in his famous work Gero; some of them come from the works of ancient classical authors, and, as was customary in the 17th century, Axular did not take them directly from the original classical works, but from other contemporary texts. In this article, we examine the possible sources of a proverb of Terence included in Gero («Sine Cerere et Bacho friget Venus» = Ax. 264), in the light of another passage of the book («Hargatik pintatzen zuten Venus jarririk» = Ax. 249). Our study establishes clear links between Gero and other contemporary ascetic works; these links do not fully explain Axular’s text, but an emblem from Laurens van Haecht Goidtsenhoven’s Mikrokosmos or Parvus Mundus (Antwerp, 1579) could do it.