EN
This article is concerned with visualization in early Modern culture. it is based on the theoretical approach to the image and its function in Western christian culture from the early Middle Ages onwards. the article demonstrates how this understanding is reflected chiefly in devotional lite rature in the form of prayers and meditation. using period texts it demonstrates their potential for visualization, which serves not only to illustrate, but also, indeed mainly, to form the mnememes, which have other important uses in religion. the article also demonstrates the links between visual and literary documents, of which the theory of perception and memory have been its shared starting points since classical Antiquity, linked by an early Modern understanding of the image in the roman catholic religion. the article offers new perspectives on early Modern documents of literature, reveals certain mechanisms concealed within them, and calls for their interdisciplinary study.