Framing devices and strategies in northern illustrated spiritual literature

The circulation of religious images throughout Europe, divided by confessional dissents, lead the artists, the authors and the publishers to develop some peculiar strategies in order to guide the reader-beholder towards the deciphering and interpretation of the correct confessional meaning. Framing devices are among the most salient in these strategies, especially but not exclusively, in emblematic literature. Taking a few specific examples, both in the Catholic and Protestant corpus, we will show how this framing apparatus directs the hermeneutics of the image and how it develops a theological meta-discourse on the status of images as well as, in return, the scriptural Word