Schola Cordis

Author: Benedicto Haefteno.

Printer: Ioanemm Mervsium.

Year: 1635

Benedictus van Haeften’s Schola Cordis is a popular emblem book published in 1629 but in circulation years before in manuscript form. Christ is depicted in separate emblems with blood dropping from his pierced hand and bloody forehead, into the heart of man. The artist seems to de liberately veer away from accurately graphic depictions of the wounded Christ, instead sanitising and censoring his appearance and the scene around him.

Van Haeften was a Benedictine writer, provost of the Abbey of Affligem. In 1627 together with eight of his monks, he made confession according to the new reform on 25 October 1628, and founded the Belgian Congregation of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin. The new reform enjoined perpetual abstinence, daily rising at two o'clock in the morning, and manual labour joined with study. The new congregation was of short duration. Archbishop of Mechelen brought about its dissolution in 1654.
Van Haeften is the author of a learned and painstaking work of monastic researches in the life and rule of St. Benedict.