E6 Mundus delirans, non sapit, quae dei sunt from Joannes David, Veridicus Christianus / 1601
Theodoor Galle
engraving / Brussels, Royal Library of Belgium, Precious Works
This is one of the hundred illustrations in Veridicus Christianus or Christian Sooth-Sayer by the Jesuit Johannes David, a moralising book of emblems that was intended to encourage a virtuous Christian life. As in Sebastian Brants’ Ship of Fools (E14), a fool is standing in the way of a good judicial process. In the scales he is holding over the ‘Mundus Delirans’ - the crazed world - matters of faith are weighed against material goods. ‘Mundus Delirans’ makes luxury outweigh piety, but in her stupidity she pushes the sacred items upwards, towards Our Lady. This emblem is intended to demonstrate that the earthly world and its justice are fallible.
E7 The Sun of Justice (Sol Justitiae) / ± 1497-1501 Albrecht Dürer
engraving / Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum
In this print, Dürer merges Justitia with Christ to form a ‘Sol Justitiae’ (Sun of Justice). This combined divinity, with legs crossed, is sitting on a lion. Judges, who ‘are able to make the sign of the cross over someone’ by sentencing