20 May 2025

 

Seminar:  Illustrating Sacred Majesty: ‘Ogilby’s Bible’ and the Political and

Religious Culture in Restoration Britain

Michael Partington, University of Aberdeen

 

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Overview 

In 1660 the pro-Stuart propagandist John Ogilby (1600–1676) published The Holy Bible containing the books of the Old & New Testament with Chorographical Sculptures. This was a re-issue of the folio edition of the King James Bible which had been published by the printer to the University of Cambridge and erstwhile printer to the Cromwellian government, John Field (d. 1668), with the addition of illustrations. ‘Ogilby’s Bible’, also printed by Field, came in two variants: one was illustrated with eight engravings and etchings – the so-called “Chorographical Sculptures” – by Abraham van Diepenbeeck (1596–1675), Pierre Lombart (1613–81) and Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–77). Another variant, as well as having the aforementioned “Chorographical Sculptures”, was extra-illustrated with over one hundred re-issued engravings – the so-called “Historical Sculptures” – by Claes Jansz. Visscher (1587–1652), after Dutch and Flemish artists, originally used in Visscher’s Theatrum Biblicum (1639). Ogilby dedicated the Bible to Charles II and presented a copy to him on the king’s first attendance at the Royal Chapel at Whitehall in 1660. This paper will explore the illustrations in the Bible through a visual exegesis of the aforesaid eight “Chorographical Sculptures”, and contextualise the royalist thinking embedded in them within a wider discussion of the political and religious culture in Restoration Britain. Specifically, it will be argued that in the illustrations of ‘Ogilby’s Bible’, Charles II (1630–85) is envisioned as a latter-day King Solomon – builder of the first Temple of Jerusalem – and the modern-day founder of a ‘New Jerusalem’; that is, a return to monarchy in Britain, something which has hitherto been unexplored in the scholarly literature on Restoration Britain. In doing so, the paper will demonstrate the value of using visual sources to learn more about the political and religious culture in Early Modern Britain.

 

Chair

​TBC

 

Presenter bio

Michael Partington is a part-time PhD candidate in Art History at the University of Aberdeen. His thesis is titled: “Paper-Kingdoms: the illustrated books of John Ogilby and the early modern world.” It is an interdisciplinary study which will provide the first ever comprehensive study of the illustrations in the folio illustrated books of the Scottish translator, publisher, theatre impresario and pro-Stuart propagandist John Ogilby (1600–1676). An ardent royalist, Ogilby was the first person to translate Virgil into English, the second to translate Homer into English and the first to publish a standardised scaled road map of England and Wales. 

 

Michael holds a BA (Honours) in History and an MA in Art History (British and Irish) from the University of Nottingham, a Diploma in History of Art (Renaissance and Baroque) from the University of Cambridge, and an MA in Arts and Culture (Art, Architecture and Interior before 1800) from Leiden University, the Netherlands. His research interests lie in early modern British art, most especially drawings, prints and book illustrations. Michael has worked as a tour guide at Speyer, Canterbury and Florence cathedrals, as a research assistant for English Heritage, as a researcher and writer for the classic cultural guide book series Blue Guides, as an instructor in history and history of art at the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE) based at the University of Ferrara, Italy, and as a volunteer print cataloguer on the portrait print collection of the naturalist, collector and entomologist Frederick William Hope (1797–1862), housed at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.