185 Pulpits in Leuven and Mechelen: visual sermons on divine grace and predestination* Xander van Eck The iconography of Flemish and Brabantine Baroque pulpits generally relates to their function, which was to spread the word of God, and in many cases it is the early messengers of that word who play leading roles in the iconography. A case in point is the pulpit that Norbert Sauvage made for the Church of St Nicholas in Ghent, on which consoles with symbols of the evangelists sup- port the body of the pulpit, which is faced with busts of the church fathers (ig. 1). Sometimes there are allu- sions to the content of the message too, such as the one by Lodewijk Willemsens in the Church of St James in Antwerp, where the personiications of Faith, Truth and Theology help bear the weight of the body (ig. 2). A new variant introduced around the end of the seventeenth century depicted the message itself, combined with ig- ures and narrative scenes that serve as visual theological discourses. In the hands of masters like Hendrik Frans Verbruggen, Michiel Vervoort and Frans Verhagen, pul- pits developed into monumental sculpted ensembles.1 The lowering of the genre was largely due to patrons, mostly representatives of religious orders who were pre- pared to invest ever-increasing sums in pulpits as public attractions. In this study I will examine the iconography of the two most ambitious projects: Hendrik Frans Ver- bruggen’s creation of 1695–98 for the Jesuits of Leuven (ig. 3), and the one that Michiel Vervoort designed in 1721 for the church of the Norbertine convent in Mechel- en (ig. 8). The Fall of Man played an important role in each, and the sermons that will be cited in evidence will demonstrate that the two pulpits represent two radically difering views of sin and divine grace. The literature on sermons is above all a gold mine for research into piety, but is not without its problems none- theless. In the case of printed sermons one never knows whether they were delivered literally, how the speaker used his voice and body, and of course it is diicult to gauge the extent to which the congregation took the les- sons to heart.2 What they incontrovertibly do reveal is the piety that the clergy desired and were looking for in their congregations, and that is what makes them so attractive as keys to the interpretation of ecclesiastical works of art, the pulpit chief among them, which were presumably intended to underpin the message. I will be examining the sermons of the Jesuit Francis- cus Costerus and the Norbertine Eligius Rigouts in an at- tempt to demonstrate that the pulpits in question served as visualized sermons, in a way, that placed the crux of the patrons’ religious convictions irmly and permanent- ly in the limelight. This elaborates on an idea of Geese, who assumes in her dissertation that the creation of * The translation from the Dutch is by Michael Hoyle. 1 P. Fierens, Chaires et confessionaux baroques, Brussels 1943. 2 H. Storme, Preekboeken en prediking in de Mechelse kerkprovincie in de 17e en de 18e eeuw, Brussels 1991, pp. 104–21. 1 Norbert Sauvage, Pulpit in the Church of St Nicholas, Ghent, 1669–70, detail with St Augustine Simiolus 38-3.indd | Sander Pinkse Boekproductie | 17/03/16 / 17:56 | Pag. 185