Military themes in selected 18th century prayer books - in relation to the emblem tradition

The starting point in the article is an absence of studies which show the realizations of the military-erotic symbols in religious literature that is associated with the emblem tradition. The discussed works – prayer books by Andrzej Gabriel Kasperowicz; anonymous Atak Niebieskiej Twierdzy… [The attack of the Heavens… or The attack into Fortress of Heavens…] and Wojsko serdecznych afektów… [The army of heartfelt affections…] by Hieronim Falęcki – retain high formal and semantic discipline; as a result, they are examples of interesting phenomena of Baroque culture.
In the first part of her article Iwona Słomak presents three prayer books in which the concept is based on analogy with the organization of the army of Christ. In the second part she shows the book in which the theme of war connects with the issue of „holy erotica”. In part three she discusses a print whose composition refers to the structure of the military detachments. It is conceived as a collection of „affections” whose task is „to conquer” heaven and the hearts of readers. Characteristically, the formula of the discussed books will be understandable only if we reconstruct their reference to the popular allegorical images (we find them in the collections of emblems, in many treatises on religious themes or in descriptions of the great ceremonies of that era); therefore, it is necessary to take into account the emblematic model that clearly influenced their final shape.

The starting point in the article is an absence of studies which show the realizations of the military-erotic symbols in religious literature that is associated with the emblem tradition. The discussed works – prayer books by Andrzej Gabriel Kasperowicz; anonymous Atak Niebieskiej Twierdzy… [The attack of the Heavens… or The attack into Fortress of Heavens…] and Wojsko serdecznych afektów… [The army of heartfelt affections…] by Hieronim Falęcki – retain high formal and semantic discipline; as a result, they are examples of interesting phenomena of Baroque culture.
In the first part of her article Iwona Słomak presents three prayer books in which the concept is based on analogy with the organization of the army of Christ. In the second part she shows the book in which the theme of war connects with the issue of „holy erotica”. In part three she discusses a print whose composition refers to the structure of the military detachments. It is conceived as a collection of „affections” whose task is „to conquer” heaven and the hearts of readers. Characteristically, the formula of the discussed books will be understandable only if we reconstruct their reference to the popular allegorical images (we find them in the collections of emblems, in many treatises on religious themes or in descriptions of the great ceremonies of that era); therefore, it is necessary to take into account the emblematic model that clearly influenced their final shape.