Matthæus Yrsselius or Irsselius, the Latinized form of Mattheus van Iersel (1541–1629), was abbot of St. Michael's Abbey, Antwerp, from 1614 until his death. He was remembered as a patron of the arts and sciences.
Patronage In 1624, he commissioned an altarpiece depicting the Adoration of the Magi from Peter Paul Rubens, paying for it in two installments of 750 guilders each in 1624 and 1626.Max Rooses, Rubens' leven en werken (1903), p. 380.
In 1627, the students of the Jesuit college in Antwerp put on a school play dramatizing the life of Norbert of Xanten, dedicating the production to Yrsselius.S. Norbert (Antwerp, Martinus Nutius, 1627). Available on Google Books.
At his death, Yrsselius bequeathed a celestial and a terrestrial globe, a cosmographic sphere, and an edition of the works of St Gregory the Great to the abbey library."Catalogue des bienfaiteurs de la bibliothèque de l'abbaye de Saint-Michel à Anvers", Le Bibliophile Belge 1:2 (1854), 276-277.
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