FRANCISCO DE HOLANDA - De Aetatibus Mundi Imagines - The Ages of the World Images (1543-1573)

De Aetatibus Mundi Imagines is a literary and pictorial sketchbook. The author of the manuscript and painter of pictures was Francisco de Hollanda (1517-1585). Francisco de Holanda (originally Francisco d’Olanda; 6 September 1517 – 19 June 1585) was a Portuguese court painter and sculptor for King John III of Portugal, and later for Sebastian of Portugal. He is considered to be one of the most important figures of the Portuguese Renaissance, also being an essayist, architect and historian. He represented the intelligible reality of the Holy Trinity through a “hypothetical“ syntax of geometrical figures. He insisted on the contrast between the ideal plane, the incorporeal form and the “imperfect copy in the terrestrial zone“. His visual language demonstrated a mixture of Neoplatonism, Christian Kabbalah and finally Lullism. Sylvie Deswarte said that “Francisco de Holanda gives a privileged place to cosmography and astrology in the education of the painter. On par w