Johannes Molanus on Provocative Paintings

The first ecclesiastical writer to take the Tridentine decrees relating to the use and abuse of religious imagery1 as a starting point for an analysis of the question of nudity in art was Johannes M ~ l a n u s , ~ in his De Picturis et Imaginibus Sacris It is true that Gilio (Louvain 1 5 7 0 ) ~ ~ da Fabriano had already published his Dialogo degli Errori de' Pittori in 1564,~ the year after the final session of the Council of Trent, but he does not mention its decrees concerning art at all, and the problem of nudity is dealt with only in the specific context of Michelangelo's Last J ~ d g m e n t . ~ Molanus, on the other hand, makes the first generalized investigation of this problem in the chapter headed 'In picturis cavendum esse quidquid ad libidinem p ro~oca t ' . ~ He is scarcely original; his attack on naked and indecent images consists almost entirely of citations from other ecclesiastical sources, and the conclusions he draws from currently popular theories of art such as those associated