, the print was finished by Hieronymous Wierix, presumably because of de Jode’s advancing age and frailty. It is after an original drawing by Maerten de Vos. A later version by Filips de Galle is known.

The scene in this broadside, ‘Spirituale Christiani Militis Certamen’, served as the basis of Jodocus Hondius the Elder’s ‘Christian Knight Map’ (see SC-TM-1597c-Hondius-KnightMap). It shows a battle against the rulers of darkness: Vanity, Sin, Carnal Weakness, the Devil, and Death. This very rare print is annotated throughout with quotations from the Bible and includes five personifications of the enemies of the Christian Knight: ‘Mundus’, or worldliness, which the Christian Knight tramples upon, ‘Peccatum’ (sin), a monstrous ‘Diabolus’ shooting flaming arrows, who is half woman half serpent, ‘Caro’ (mortal flesh) and ‘Mors’ (death) who wields a scythe. A path in the upper left leads to the New Jerusalem.

Hieronymous, or Jerome Wierix (1553–1619), was the middle of three brothers who were all engravers in Antwerp in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, attached to the guild of Saint Luke. They were often employed by Christophe Plantin, who is best known for publishing 

’ atlas, the ‘Theatrum’, and by Jesuits and other Counter-Reformists in producing pro-Catholic prints and broadsides, like this one.

All three brothers had a terrible reputation for disorderly conduct. Christophe Plantin famously complained that ‘whoever wanted to employ the Wierix brothers had to go and look for them in the taverns, pay their debts, and recover their tools which they had pawned’. In 1578, Hieronymous Wierix killed a woman in a drunken assault inside her tavern.

The original broadside on which Jodocus Hondius the Elder based the allegorical figures in his influential 'Christian Knight Map', known for its philosophical allegories showing a Christian knight and king fighting the rulers of darkness. 

Engraved by Hieronymous Wierix, the broadside shows the Christian Knight trampling upon ‘Caro’ (Carnal Desires), surrounded by the threats of the World or ‘Mundus’, ‘Peccatum’ (Sin), a monstrous half-woman, half-serpent, the Devil or ‘Diabolus’, aiming three flaming arrows, and ‘Mors’ (Death), wielding a scythe; at upper left a path leads to the New Jerusalem.

The original broadside on which Jodocus Hondius the Elder based the allegorical figures in his influential ‘Christian Knight’ map.


Original Broadside for the ‘Christian Knight Map’