'Pictura Batava': Hadrianus Junius, artists and chorography

Abstract

‘‘Pictura Batava’’ explores the topos of the artist in Early Modern ‘chorography’ with an emphasis on the Low Countries. The thesis describes how chorography, the ancient term for an account of a region of land that was revived by Italian humanists during the Renaissance and proliferated throughout scholarly circles across Europe, came to include artists. The northern Netherlandish humanist Hadrianus Junius’ passages on artists in his account of Habsburg Holland, Batavia (1588), anchor the study. It places Junius’ example into a context of parallel passages on artists in chorographies written in Italy, Germany and the Low Countries before and afterwards.