Matthæus Yrsselius
The High Reverend Lord Matthæus Yrsselius O.Praem. | |
|---|---|
| abbas S. Michaelis Antwerpiensis | |
 Portrait by Peter Paul Rubens (ca. 1624) | |
| Church | Roman Catholic |
| Installed | 1614 |
| Term ended | 1629 |
| Predecessor | Christianus Michælius |
| Successor | Johannes Chrysostomus vander Sterre |
| Personal details | |
| Birth name | Mattheus van Iersel |
| Born | 1541 |
| Died | 1629 |
Matthæus Yrsselius or Irsselius, the Latinized form of Mattheus van Iersel (1541–1629), was abbot of St. Michael's Abbey, Antwerp, from 1614 until his death. He was remembered as a patron of the arts and sciences.
Patronage[]
In 1624 he commissioned an altarpiece depicting the Adoration of the Magi from Peter Paul Rubens, paying for it in two installments of 750 guilders each in 1624 and 1626.[1]
In 1627 the students of the Jesuit college in Antwerp put on a school play dramatizing the life of Norbert of Xanten, dedicating the production to Yrsselius.[2]
At his death Yrsselius bequeathed a celestial and a terrestrial globe, a cosmographic sphere, and an edition of the works of St Gregory the Great to the abbey library.[3]
References[]
- ^ Max Rooses, Rubens' leven en werken (1903), p. 380.
- ^ S. Norbert (Antwerp, Martinus Nutius, 1627). Available on Google Books.
- ^ "Catalogue des bienfaiteurs de la bibliothèque de l'abbaye de Saint-Michel à Anvers", Le Bibliophile Belge 1:2 (1854), 276-277.
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