Translation: Jon Alkorta Martiartu, PhD (UPV/EHU)
The war of images
On October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther, an Augustinian theologian and friar from Wittenberg, nailed a manuscript known as the Ninety-five Theses to the door of his local church in order to open a theological debate. The ideas contrary to Rome spread throughout Europe thanks to the printing press. But a very important fact that we want to highlight here is the creation of propagandist images of the Reformation in which the Pope of Rome was compared to the Antichrist. In this way, the ideas of the Reformation were taken up by the common people of Northern Europe.
Introduction
We could say without a doubt that the most important task undertaken by the papacy of Rome during the 16th and 17thcenturies was the erection of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. All the popes, from Julius II in 1506 to Urban VIII in 1626, once this temple had been consecrated, did not hesitate to do whatever was necessary to raise funds for what would become the main bastion of Christianity. As no expense could be spared, the best masters had to be sought for both the architecture and the decoration of the temple. True geniuses of the stature of Bramante, Raphael Sanzio and Michelangelo himself were involved. One of the ways that the Catholic clergy found to finance this enormous work was the sale of indulgences: whoever paid a good sum of money to the Church of Rome could obtain the forgiveness of all their sins, or at least the ascent to Purgatory, a fact that was recorded in a deed issued by the Pope. These documents were called indulgences.
In this context, the Christians of the north began to be suspicious of this attitude of Rome, with which they did not agree at all. The scandal was such that it dynamited the Christian Church as it was constituted at the time. On October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther presented the Ninety-five Theses in order to open a debate.
But it was the spark that ignited the flame. The theses were quickly translated into German and spread thanks to the printing press. Within two weeks they had spread throughout Germany and, after two months, throughout Europe. It was the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
One of the reasons for the triumph of the Reformation was a phenomenon parallel to the theological debate that undoubtedly helped the ideas of the Reformation to triumph over the papacy. A series of master engravers began to make critical prints against the papacy and to disseminate them thanks to the printing press. The common people all over Europe could see the monks as asses, the Church as the beast of the Apocalypse or the Pope as the Antichrist.
The Passional Christi und Antichristi
Lucas Cranach the Elder. “Christ Entering Jersualem” and “The Pope Going to War”, from the Passional Christi und Antichristi. Wittemberg (1521).
Published in Wittemberg in March 1521, the Passional Christi und Antichristi is made up of thirteen woodcuts with quotations from the Bible, papal decrees and sentences, and arguments coined by Melanchthon and the jurist Johann Schwerdtfeger. The idea was to translate through images the idea that the pope led the Church of the Antichrist. This antithetical character to the pope is based on a prophecy from the Book of Daniel and its story was developed by a popular legend during the Middle Ages. What Melanchthon did and Cranach drew was a series of pairs of images that contrasted the life of the pope with that of Jesus Christ. While Jesus Christ had the crown of thorns placed on him, the pope wears his triple tiara of gold. While Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem acclaimed with palms, the Pope goes to war with powerful soldiers. While Christ, the true king, comes to save, not to reign, the Pope presents his kingdom in a way that is the opposite of what it should be. To this Cranach adds flourishes, such as the opposition of the gates of Jerusalem to the gates of hell.
Measuring the temple
Lucas Cranach the Elder. Measuring the Temple. Wittemberg (1522).
One of Cranach’s illustrations for Luther’s first translation of the Bible, published in September 1522, shows a temple that St. John was commissioned to measure—as seen in Revelation 11. Under a block of the ground that seems to have shifted, the beast of the Apocalypse rising from the abyss carries a triple tiara, thus associating it with the Pope of Rome. Again, we find the idea of the link between the Pope and the Antichrist.
The catholic clergy in the cauldron
Xylography from Apocalypse and Satirical Allegories on the Church. “The Catholic Clergy in the Cauldron” (1546).
Gerung’s series on the The Book of Revelation, along with Cranach’s Passional Christi und Antichristi, are perhaps the most important documents of Reformation propaganda. Because of its rarity and the fact that the series was never published as a book with accompanying text, it has perhaps been little emphasized. We know that the woodcuts were designed as pairs, with an illustration of the Apocalypse on the left and in parallel on the right a satire of some aspect of the Catholic Church or the Turks, usually based on the same fragment of the text.
The woodcut we see depicts the destruction of the Antichrist, whom Gerung equates with the Pope. The pontiff is shown with other Catholics in a cauldron over a fire stoked by two devils and a figure with the papal tiara around his neck, watched by a bishop and cardinals: an ironic satire in which the Catholic Church is about to be destroyed. The corresponding passage in The Book of Revelation, which should have paired with this scene, is the vision of the fifth Angel, in which the angel throws a star with a key into the Pit of Hell and releases a plague of monstrous locusts; the great cloud of smoke coming from the abyss is interpreted by Gerung as the heresy of the papacy, and the Great War to come in five months’ time would bring an end to the Antichrist and his papal plague.
The Antichrist
Matthias Gerung. “The Birth of the Antichrist”. Xylography.
This image and another dedicated to the baptism of the Antichrist belong to an unknown series of pamphlets on the popular theme of the adversary of Jesus, the false Messiah, whose activities were linked by Protestant propaganda to the papacy. The first depicts the birth of the Antichrist and the second his baptism, with explanatory inscriptions in Latin and German. These texts tell that the birth of this being was very slow and painful, which happened while the Devil was bathing in the Acheron, the river of the infernal regions. The descriptions of the second image are more uplifting, as they narrate that the true baptism will free mankind from the threat of the Last Judgment.
The demon playing the bagpipes
Erhard Schön. “The Devil with a Bagpipe” (1530).
This is one of the most striking images in the large number of engravings directed by the reformers against the Catholic Church of Rome. The image of the devil perched on the shoulders of a monk, through whose ears and nose he plays his song, is made in light of the frequent association of bagpipes with lust. The idea that monks were the Devil’s instruments was common and appears in numerous woodcuts that show them as monsters. However, this link between monks and the Devil was common among the populace already before the Reformation.
The seven-headed beast
Hans Brosamer. “Seven-Headed Martin Luther (1529). Cover print from Johannes Cochelus’s Sieben köpfe Martini Luthers book.
A few years after this war of images began, Catholics also sought criticism through infamous engravings. The most famous is probably the one by Hans Brosamer, entitled Seven-headed Martin Luther. The woodcut shows the reformer as the dragon or Antichrist described in The Book of Revelation. The seven heads correspond to different characters: a doctor, a saint, an infidel, a priest, a fanatic, an overseer of the church and Barabbas. They are all heads of a Luther whose opinions are as various as his heads.
A year after the beast designed by the Catholics, the Protestants responded with the woodcut of the seven-headed papal beast. This effigy gathers figures of the church that belong to various levels. The monster is located on an altar to Mammon (a personification of wealth). The engraving’s text explains that the papacy has been enriched by the promulgation of indulgences.
OpenEdition le sugiere que cite este post de la siguiente manera:
Dr. Pedro Ortega (3 de julio de 2023). La guerra de las imágenes. El blog de Tartalo. Recuperado 19 de marzo de 2025 de https://doi.org/10.58079/unvs
Hola Miguel: celebro que te gustara el artículo. Es un tema poco conocido pero ciertamente significativo. Efectivamente, sin la imprenta no hubiera sido posible.
Mil gracias por tu comentario.
Me ha gustado mucho este artículo. La propaganda anti Iglesia Católica o anti Lutero/ Reforma, del siglo xvi, no hubiera sido posible sin la imprenta.