Icons, work by Théodore de Bèze

As early as 1577, Théodore de Bèze undertook the creation of a work intended to present faithful portraits of illustrious actors of the Reformation – theologians, martyrs, and even sovereigns.

In 1580, he delivered a first version, still incomplete, printed in Geneva under the title Icons. Each portrait was accompanied by a small biography and some Latin verses. These representations were followed by a small collection of emblems, the Emblemata. These symbolic images were accompanied by morals in Latin. The portraits of the Icons are partly attributed to the Swiss artist Tobias Stimmer (1539-1584). The Emblemata are, for their part, the work of Pierre Eskrich (c. 1518-1595), an engraver of Parisian origin received by a bourgeois from Geneva in the 1560s.

The MIR has a copy of the work whose binding, decorated with splendid decoration, is largely from the period.

Work by Théodore de Bèze

Théodore de Bèze produced this work to present faithful portraits of illustrious actors of the Reformation.

Return to collection