ABSTRACT
Aer his successful conquest of the Southern Netherlands and the capture of Antwerp, Alexander Farnese, duke of Parma, appointed the young Jesuit omas Sailly as almoner for his troops. As head of the group of Jesuits who took care of the religious welfare of the army, the ‘missio castrensis’, one of Sailly’s rst concerns was the availability of Catholic prayer books for the soldiers. For the printing of these books he contacted the Antwerp Plantin Press. His correspondence with this press attests to a special attention to the design and illustration of the books he ordered. From his letters it becomes clear which types of illustrations were important for the Jesuits and the various ways they were produced. Furthermore, the letters reveal that there was oen a signicant dierence between what Sailly wanted and what the publisher was prepared to invest. e case of the illustration of Sailly’s prayer books provides an interesting case study of how an author and a publisher negotiated these problems around the year 1600.
