Geneva in the hand of God

In the last part of the “Icons”, Théodore de Bèze adds to the faces of the Reformation forty-four Emblemata, a sort of small inscriptions in verse placed under illustrations with varied motifs.

Most of them relate to the Christian life, the martyrs and the controversy against the pope.

The enlarged emblem here represents a fortified city held between heaven and earth by a hand emerging from the clouds. It is about the World or Geneva, “by the powerful hand of the Lord retained”, indicates the second verse.

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At the end of the work of the "Icons", Théodore de Bèze adds to the faces of the Reformation forty-four Emblemata.

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John of Laon, 1580
"Emblem IX, the City in the Hand of God", in Bèze, "Icones et Emblemata", Geneva

© International Museum of the Reform (MIR), Geneva, Facsimile.

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