Fr. Louis Richeome, S.J. And The Counter Reformation

Fr. Louis Richeome, S.J. (1544-1625) French humanist and Jesuit. In his time, he was called the "French Cicero" played a crucial role in overcoming prohibitions, if not deep-seated prejudices, against the Jesuit order in 17th century France.

Along with fellow-Jesuit Pierre Cotton and Cardinal Jacques-Davy Du Perron, Louis Richeome completed the trio of leading French Catholic controversialists of his age. All three writers drew heavily on Roberto Bellarmino's exhaustive compendium of arguments against Protestant doctrine,

Disputationes de controversiis christianæ fidei (Iglostadt, 1586; numerous Parisian re-editions), yet each developed a distinctive style through which to rehearse these points. Richeome's specialty lay in his appeal to visual media, a strategy he laid out in the 1601 Tableaux sacrez des figures mystiques du tres-auguste sacrifice et sacrement de l'Eucharistie printed by Laurent Sonnius, a well known publisher and founding member of the powerful counter-reformation editing cartel, the Compagnie du navire. Further editions in 1602, 1604, 1609, 1611, and 1613 attest to its success despite what must have been a fairly steep price, given its expensive illustration.

In it, Richeome urges the reader to "cast his or her mind's eye on one or more of these venerable images…his contemplation will make the soul's eye more diligent and keen, and the heart more eager for heavenly sustenance,

" "jetter les yeux de son entendement, sur un ou plusieurs de ces anciens tableaux […] ceste contemplation luy aura rendu l'œil de l'ame plus attentif et pénetrant, et le cœur plus désireux de la viande celeste" (ẽ3r).

Published ten years before the better-known Peinture spirituelle, Richeome's Tableaux sacrés coincided in France with engraving's definitive replacement of the cheaper woodcut illustrations of the preceding century, and this work set a new standard for the engraver's craft thanks to Léonard Gaultier's consummate artistry. The entire project also owes much to the renewed interest in Philostratus' Images ou tableaux de la platte peinture, triggered by Blaise de Vigenère's translation and commentary in 1578, substantially expanded in a second, posthumous edition by Abel L'Angelier in 1597. L'Angelier collaborated with Sonnius, and with particular frequency around the time that Sonnius was embarking upon the Richeome-Gaultier Tableaux sacrés, producing joint editions in 1594, 1599, 1600 [three different titles], 1601, 1615.1 One copy of the Tableaux sacrés even survives in what appears to be a stylized binding associated with L'Angelier's shop, suggesting that L'Angelier might have acted as an outlet for Sonnius' edition

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