An attempt has been made to exonerate him of direct responsibility for the pictures, and to set them down to the account of the draughtsman who, according to a passage in a letter of Luther’s, was believed to be his friend, the famous painter Lucas Cranach.
That the whole was really a child of Luther’s own mind is proved, however, by the very title-page “Popery Pictured by Dr. M. Luther,” Wittenberg, 1545, as well as by his clear and outspoken statement shortly before his death to Pastor Matthias Wanckel of Halle. “I still have much that ought to be told the world concerning the Pope and his kingdom, and for this reason I have published these images and figures, each of which stands for a separate book to be written against the Pope and his kingdom. I wanted to witness before the whole world what I thought of the Pope and his devil’s kingdom; let them be my last Will and Testament.” “I have greatly vexed the Pope with these nasty pictures,” “Oh, how the sow will lift her tail! But, even should they kill me, they must gorge on the filth that the Pope holds in his hand. I have placed a golden thing in the Pope’s hands [i.e. in the picture to be described immediately] that he may pledge them in it.”[1672]—Again, in a letter to Amsdorf, he alludes to a scene in which the Furies figure, saying that he had designed them (“appingerem”), and describing in detail what he meant the figures to stand for.[1673]
Hence it is impossible to contest Luther’s real authorship.
It is true that, on one occasion, he speaks of Cranach the painter as the draughtsman of one of the pictures; he may, however, have simply meant that it originated in his studio. According to expert opinion the technique of the woodcuts differs so much from the master’s that they cannot be attributed to him; they may, however, have been executed by one of his pupils under his direction.[1674]
We may now glance at the nine pictures which make up the “Abbildung des Bapstum,” commencing with that just referred to.[1675]
The picture with the Furies to which Luther refers is that which represents the “birth and origin of the Pope,” as the Latin superscription describes it. Here is depicted, in a peculiarly revolting way, what Luther says in his “Wider das Bapstum vom Teuffel gestifft,” viz. the Pope’s being born from the “devil’s behind.” The devil-mother is portrayed as a hideous woman with a tail, from under which Pope and Cardinals are emerging head foremost. Of the Furies one is suckling, another carrying, and the third rocking the cradle of the Papal infant, whom the draughtsman everywhere depicts wearing the tiara. These are the Furies Megæra, Alecto and Tisiphone.[1676]
Another picture shows the “Worship of the Pope as God of the World.” This, too, expresses a thought contained in the “Wider das Bapstum,” where Luther says: “We may also with a safe conscience take to the closet his coat of arms with the Papal keys and his crown, and use them for the relief of nature.”[1677] As a matter of fact in this picture we see on a stool decorated with the papal insignia a crown or tiara set upside down on which a man-at-arms is seated in the action of easing himself; a second, with his breeches undone, prepares to do the same, while a third who has already done so is adjusting his dress.
The picture with the title “The Pope gives a Council in Germany” shows the Pope in his tiara riding on a sow and digging his spurs into her sides. The sow is Germany which is obliged to submit to such ignominious treatment from the Papists; as for the Council which the Pope is giving to the German people it is depicted as his own, the Pope’s, excrement, which he holds in his hand pledging the Germans in it, as Luther says in the passage quoted above (p. 422). The Pope blesses the steaming object while the sow noses it with her snout. Underneath stands the ribald verse:
“Sow, I want to have a ride,
Spur you well on either side.
Did you say ‘Concilium’?
Take instead my ‘merdrum.’”[1678]