Pax optima rerum

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Pax optima rerum on a fireback of the historic town hall in Münster
Pax optima rerum on the top left of the picture

Pax optima rerum is a winged word of the poet Silius Italicus from the Punica (11,595). Its meaning reads: Peace is the best of things , or also: Peace is the best that nature has given man. It was taken up again by ( Erasmus von Rotterdam in his work The Lamentation of Peace ).

It is considered the motto of the Peace of Westphalia : When the painter Gerard ter Borch commissioned the engraver Jonas Suyderhoef to rework his painting Peace of Münster into a copperplate, he changed the lettering on the upper left edge of the picture on which ter Borch had immortalized his name - the motto of the court in Münster was: Audiatur et altera pars - in pax optima rerum. It can also be found on the seal of the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johann Wussin : Jonas Suyderhoef. List of his engravings . R. Weigel, Leipzig 1861, p. 59 ( digitized version ).