Received an email from the Vatican Observatory Foundation observing today’s feast. It included this quote from his autobiography:
The greatest consolation that he received at this time was from gazing at the sky and stars, and this he often did and for quite a long time.
Nice picture.
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Who painted this?
It’s a 16th/17th century painting. I tried to research it, but was unsuccessful
The dedication is to one Johan* Heinrich Wildt, listed as a senator and patrician of Freiburg, presumably im Briesgau (Baden), not the Swiss Fribourg which is more French than German.
The top inscription is something that Ignatius borrowed from St Augustine, to the effect: “How soiled the earth [seems in comparison], with beholding the heavens”.
* The orthography of the German forms of John in southern Germanic lands is variable, as a historical matter. Johannes, Johann, Johan (Jan is more common in northern Germanic lands).