Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis

a Brazilian Franciscan tile between continents, confessions and temporalities

Abstract

The basically identical thirty-seven tile panels in the cloister of San Francisco in Olinda, Pernambuco, and in the convent of San Francisco in Salvador, Bahia, composed of inscriptiones and picturae of emblems from the book (1607) by the Flemish artist Otto van Veen (1556–1629), articulate an understanding of time based on the neo-estoism of the Flemish philosopher Justus Lipsius (1547-1606). However, the motto of the panel Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis (Times change and we change with them) cites a temporal vision articulated for the first time by the Lutheran pastor Caspar Huberinus (1500-1553) and finalized, exchanging nosque for et nos, by the Latinist and Protestant physician Matthias Borbonius (1566-1629). Thus, the panels document a dispute about the current temporality, between a classical (fatum stoicum) and medieval or a modern understanding, read by us from the Hartmut Rosa´s theoretical approach called acceleration of time. We conclude that the theme of temporality, precisely because of its change in process, was in the 16th (Lipsius), 17th (van Veen) and 18th (panels) centuries a subject that divided the confessions by their distinct emphases on tradition (the past guides the present) and on the word that challenges the status quo (the present opens up to a distinct future).