Les thèses illustrées dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux au XVIIe siècle : étude iconologique des rapports entre arts, sciences et pouvoirs

My doctoral research focused on the practice of thesis prints, which spread in parallel in universities and Jesuit schools in the 17th-century Low Countries. In those images, often designed and engraved by famous artists following Peter Paul Rubens, various discursive systems are displayed. They highlight the scientific conclusions to be defended as well as the narrative scene glorifying the student’s protector. My aim has been to position these complex representations within their academic, artistic and sociopolitical framework and to analyze the elaborate visual devices intended to stage and strenghten the written dedication: multiplication of the framing structures and the ornamental figures, polysemy of the allegorical, emblematic and symbolic languages, mise en abyme of the act of gift-giving. This study of the aesthetics of power allowed me to shed a new light on the cultural context of the Spanish Low Countries. Thesis broadsides demonstrate the impact of engravings in the process of Catholic reconquest that unfolded in those regions. They are also witnesses of the courtly patronage pervading the institutions of higher education in the early modern period. Finally, they convey the exceptional communication strenght of images, putting knowledge at the service of power.