Orpheus Enchanting the Birds and Animals with his Lyre

Entry

This is Goeree’s design for the frontispiece to the poetry collection Chorus musarum, id est elogia, poemata, epigrammata, echo, aenigmata, ludus poeticus, ars hermietica, &c., published in Leiden in 1700 by Johannes Du Vivié (?-1728[?]) and Isaac Severinus (1697-1742). The frontispiece design was engraved in reverse by the Amsterdam printmaker Joselph Mulder (1658-1742). The subject-matter – Orpheus enchanting the animals with his music – playfully refers to the poet who enchants his readers. The author of the poems, Janus de Bisschop, achieved this by means of both his serious poems and the whimsical spirit that dominates much of the collection with its sharp epigrams and artful puns, as in the echo poems, etc. The entire collection was written in Latin, intended for an audience of mainly Leiden students. The fact that the figure of Orpheus drawn by Goeree somewhat resembles Apollo may relate to the latter's role as brother and ruler of the Nine Muses (i.e. the so-called ‘chorus musarum’ of the publication’s title). In the distant right background of the scene is the Muses’ place of residence, Mount Parnassus, on top of which is the winged horse Pegasus.

The author of the poetry collection was not, as incorrectly assumed in various library catalogues, Jan de Bisschop (1628-1671), the well-known lawyer, talented amateur artist and art theorist known by his nickname Episcopius, who was active in the circle of Constantijn Huygens II (1668-1697).¹ By 1700, when the poetry collection was published, Jan had already been dead for 29 years.

The actual poet of the Chorus musarum was careful not to use the same Latinized nickname as the seventeenth-century lawyer. He called himself ‘Janus de Bisschop’ on the title page and ‘Janus Biscopides’ in the collection itself. He dedicated his book to two men from the circle of the great naval hero Michiel de Ruyter (1607-1676), including his grandson Cornelis de Witte (1660-1701). More important are the dates of these two dedications: made in the town of Veere in the region of Walcheren (Veris Valachrorum) in July and September 1699, respectively. From a biographical point of view, the large section of epigrams is particularly interesting. Among them are many on figures from the Southern Netherlands, Leiden and Amsterdam. In one of them, Jacobus van de Walle (1599-1690), a Jesuit and Flemish Neo-Latin poet active in Antwerp, known as Wallius, is addressed by De Bisschop as ‘magistro meo’ (‘my teacher’). Considering this and the city where his poetry collection was published, the author must be identical to a certain ‘Johannes de Bisschop’ from Flanders, who enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy and Liberal Arts at Leiden University on 14 December 1694. He was already a ‘magister’ at that time and had therefore already obtained a degree elsewhere, as was often the case with students from abroad.²

It is not yet known how this Johannes de Bisschop ended up connected with the Leiden publishers Johannes Du Vivie and Isaac Severinus, nor how he came to be associated with Jan Goeree. Then 29 years old and still at the beginning of his career, Goeree, who was born in Zeeland, had moved to Amsterdam as a child in 1677 with his father, Willem Goeree (1635-1711). By 1700, he had already established ties with the Leiden publisher Pieter van der Aa (1659-1733). In this early design, his draughtsmanship was still somewhat rough, and there is little sign of the stricter classicism that would later characterize his work.

Robert-Jan te Rijdt, 2018