Ora et labora: Devotion and scholarship in the Italian drawings of the Madonna by Juan Ricci de Guevara

In the Benedictine intellectual network scholarly activity is combined with practicing faith. The way in which these to pillars influenced each other in the seventeenth century becomes clear in the analysis of six Italian drawings of the Madonna by Juan Ricci de Guevara. The drawings are manifestations of Ricci’s critical stance towards Aquinas’s remarks concerning devotion to Mary. For Ricci the popular devotion to Mary outweighs the intellectual theological restrictions. A recurring argument in Ricci’s criticism is the divine experience by devout artists while creating an image of Mary, which goes back to the legend of Saint Luke. Ricci reenacts this practice in his drawings that are based on popular images of the Madonna. Since various icons attributed to Saint Luke where popular objects of devotion in the seventeenth century, Ricci replaces Aquinas by Saint Luke as an authority in the matter of the devotion to Mary. The drawings show several ways in which Ricci approaches this issue. They are manifestations of Ricci’s merge of devotion and scholarship, leading to his conclusion that in the creation of these images it is possible to worship Mary’s divinity.