Album amicorum of Johannes Bogerman
f. 39r: Theodorus Beza, Geneva, 21 January 1598
The album of theologian Johannes Bogerman contains 36 portrait engravings of famous scholars from a copy of the Doctorum aliquot virorum vivae effigies by Joos de Bosscher (-1591). Bogerman studied at the University of Franeker and completed his education with a stay in Heidelberg, Geneva, Oxford and Cambridge.
In Geneva he met the famous Calvinist Theodorus Beza. He could not resist writing under his own uncanny portrait: ‘O Christ, may You grant me that in Your church I resemble the true image of the pastor of the soul just as much as I do not resemble the portrait that this engraver, whoever he may have been, has made here in terms of appearance and posture.’ The relativizing tone of this commentary is understandable when one considers that Beza was almost 79 years old at the time.
Album amicorum of Johannes Bogerman. 80 contributions, 1594-1606, Netherlands, Germany, France, England. Request number: 131 E 7
