Van Gestel - Historia - 1725

THE THEATER OF POWER: GRAND TABLES REVISITED, SECRET MEMORIES, AND FLAMING PRIDE
In Folio - This imposing Historia sacra et profana of Cornelis van Gestel is one of the most remarkable books of ecclesiastical topography of the Austrian Netherlands in the early 18th century: a large folio that combines historical erudition, sacred geography, monumental memory, and institutional celebration of the archdiocese of Mechelen. The work describes towns, villages, monasteries, castles and lordships subject to the archbishopric, transforming the territory into a visual and documentary archive made of maps, views, portraits, and funerary monuments. The presence of the large map of the archdiocese, the folded views of Mechelen, Brussels and Leuven, and the engraved iconographic apparatus give the volume a quality that is both celebratory and antiquarian, while the noble Snoy et d’Oppuers provenance enhances its historical charm. In its first and only edition, it is a book that interests religious history, historical topography, aristocratic genealogy, and the collecting of grand illustrated Flemish folios.
MARKET VALUE
For this edition, the recent market shows a generally stable range between 700 and 900 euros.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Two volumes bound into one volume. Contemporary full leather binding with gold-tooled raised bands on the spine; signs of wear and losses. Title in red and black and 23 plates/prints out of text. The illustrative apparatus includes 1 large folded map of the archdiocese of Mechelen, engraved on 2 unbound sheets, 3 folded views of St Rombald of Mechelen, St Michael and St Gudula in Brussels, and St Peter in Leuven, 9 portraits, 10 monuments or funerary inscriptions, 2 vignettes on the title pages, and 1 half-page coat of arms of the dedicatee Thomas Philipp. Some humidity stains on the second title page and sporadic foxing. Provenance from the Snoy et d’Oppuers family, with heraldic ownership marks. Some tears on the folded maps. In old books, with a multiseccular history, some imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description. Pp. (4); 8nn; 290; 2nn; 328; 2nn; (4).

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Historia sacra et profana Archiepiscopatus Mechliniensis.
Hagae Comitum, apud Christianum van Lom, 1725.
Cornelis van Gestel.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
The work belongs to that lavish and ambitious genre of territorial histories that, between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, do not limit themselves to recording foundations, benefices and hierarchies, but build a true geography of memory. Van Gestel presents the archdiocese of Mechelen as a living structure of cities, collegiate churches, abbeys, lordships and families, verified through funerary inscriptions, monastic plates, diplomas, and site inspections, as the title itself states. The large map and the folded views transform the volume into a sacred-historical atlas, while the funerary monuments and portraits make it also a heraldic and genealogical repository. For this reason the book interests not only the religious history of Brabant and the Southern Netherlands, but also studies on the culture of memory, the visual representation of territory, and the construction of episcopal prestige.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Cornelis van Gestel was born in Mechelen in 1658 and died there in 1748; he was a priest, historian, and antiquary closely tied to the city’s ecclesiastical milieu, remembered as an extremely prolific author. Bibliographic and antiquarian sources present him as a priest and historian of Mechelen, and Dutch literary tradition attributes to him a vast production in Latin, French, and Dutch. In this volume emerges his most characteristic trait: painstaking local erudition based on documents, epigraphs, institutional memories, and on-site investigations, but organized with a conspicuous celebratory ambition.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
This is the first and only known edition, printed in The Hague by Christianus van Lom in 1725. Modern bibliographic catalogs record it as a Latin edition in two parts, with copies held in institutional libraries and digitized by major patrimonial collections, a circumstance that confirms a learned but relatively limited circulation, typical of an erudite, expensive and highly illustrated publication. The work’s presence in WorldCat/HathiTrust and in key libraries, together with its recurring reappearance on the Belgian and Dutch antiquarian market, shows that the book is not unattainable, but remains a specialized title that primarily appeals to collectors of Dutch topographical history, ecclesiastical history, and large illustrated folios.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
De Ghellinck, Bibliographie des éditions belges, no. 1764.
STCN, edition registered under Cornelis van Gestel, Historia sacra et profana Archiepiscopatus Mechliniensis, The Hague, Christianus van Lom, 1725.
WorldCat/OCLC 868960402; OCLC 45455694; OCLC 634781676.
HathiTrust Catalog, Historia sacra et profana Archiepiscopatus Mechliniensis, record 102459449.