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Original fileReligio Christiana
About This Work
A veiled woman representing the Christian faith is seated centrally, clutching a large wooden cross and holding an open book upon her lap. She rests her feet upon a sacrificial lamb and a fallen, crowned king representing pagan Idolatry, whose scepter has slipped from his hand. Above her, the Holy Spirit descends as a dove beneath the Hebrew name of God, while the Greek monogram 'IHS' is inscribed upon her chest.
This print reflects the Renaissance integration of Christian Hebraism, using the Tetragrammaton to represent the divine source of authority. It illustrates the Counter-Reformation effort to codify religious allegory, asserting the victory of revealed scripture over both ancient paganism and 'idolatrous' worship through a synthesis of classical personification and sacred linguistics.
Inscriptions
יהוה RELIGIO CHRISTIANA IHS IDOLATRIA Relligio sit quanta vides prognata Tonante: Haec subigit cultus, simulacraque vana Deorum.
Translation
YHWH CHRISTIAN RELIGION IHS IDOLATRY Behold how great the religion is, born of the Thunderer: It subdues false cults and the vain images of the gods.
Connected Texts
Johannes Reuchlin
Reuchlin's work in 'De Arte Cabalistica' popularized the Christian use of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton as a symbol of divine essence in the West.
Cesare Ripa
The iconography of the veiled woman with a cross and book closely follows the standard Renaissance personification of 'Religio' found in works like the Iconologia.
Provenance & Source
Object
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
paper
height 143 mm x width 89 mm
allegory
Linked Data
AI AI-cataloged fields generated by gemini-3-flash-preview on April 2, 2026. Getty identifiers are AI-inferred and may require verification.