350 ČLÁNKY ARTICLES UMĚNÍ  ART       5      LXIII       2015 TEREZA JOHANIDESOVÁ THE EUCHARIST AND ATOMS IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ART LUBOMÍR KONEČNÝ INSTITUTE OF ART HISTORY OF THE CZECH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, PRAGUE he Eucharist and Atoms in Seventeenth-Century Art* At irst sight, the title of this paper is reminiscent of Lautrémont’s ‘encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table’. he reasons are obvious: the Eucharist is a basic element of the Christian cult, whereas the atom (together with the theory of relativity and the DNA helix) is one of the foundation stones of modern science. However, I will try to show that this is really only so at irst sight. I will therefore start by presenting a small group of works of art with a common iconography and re- constructing the links between them. hen, with the help of contemporary texts, I will try to decipher what these works were reacting to, what their starting-point was, and which intellectual context they belong to. Finally, I will ask what the miracle of the Eucharist, one of the basic elements of the Christian faith, might have in common with the smallest, chemically indivisible particles of ma- ter? Or, to put it another way: what did the Catholic faith in the 17th century have in common with modern physics? he material I will use to construct my paper will be representations of the Five Senses (Sight, Hearing, Taste, Smell, and Touch), which is rightly regarded as one of the most widespread themes of profane iconography in the Baroque period. 1 It is therefore not surprising that works in which these Five Senses are used in the context of sacred iconography are very rare. However they are instructive for us in that they demonstrate how the meaning of the Five Senses could change over time and what connotations they could acquire. By way of introduction let us open the book Urania Victrix, which was published in Munich in 1663 by Jacob Balde, S.J., the Bavarian court preacher and Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Ingolstadt [1]. Its subtitle informs us that this allegorical poem describes the stru- ggle of the Christian soul with the snares and insults of the ive senses that control the body. (‘Vrania victrix sive Animae Christanae certamina adversus illecebras et insultus quinque sensuum, ministrorum corporis, carmine descripta …’) Judging from the engraving by Melchior Küsell that forms the frontispiece of the book, Anima Christiana, equipped with the leters IHS on its breast, is evidently victorious in this struggle, for at its feet lie the atributes of the Five Senses: a telescope, an armillary sphere, and a mirror (Visus); a lit pipe (Odoratus); a lute (Auditus); a jug (Gustus); and a candle with a buterly or moth lying round its lame (Tactus). 2 And last but not least, the Christian Soul is accompanied by an angel with a cross, equipped with the well-known triumphal inscription In hoc [signo] vinces. his work by Melchior Küsell was, however, not the only, nor indeed the irst work on the theme of ‘the Eucharist versus the Five Senses’. At the beginning of this iconographical series is a copperplate engraving by Cornelis Galle (Holl. VII, 148) [2], made in 1638 ater a no longer extant drawing by the Antwerp painter Erasmus Quellinus as the frontispiece for a university thesis on the Eucharist that was defended by Fr. Andreas de Lamma, S.J. (Positiones Sacrae de Augustissimo Sacramento Eucharistiae). 3 It depicts Faith leading to the sacrament of the altar the personiication of Sight, while the other four senses remain in the background on the right, and are not accor- ded this privilege. he Eucharistic meaning of this scene is further emphasised by the text in a cartouche at the botom in the centre: PRAESTAT FIDES / SVPPLMENTVM SENSVVM / DEFECTVI (‘faith for all defects supplying, / where the feeble senses fail’). his is the inal line of the ith verse of the hymn Pange Lingua [Sing, My Tongue], which was probably writen by St. homas Aquinas. 4 Shortly aterwards, in 1645, Galle’s engraving was used by heodor Matham as the model for the frontispiece for a work by the Dutch poet and scholar Joost van den Vondel entitled Altaergeheimenissen