Martin Luther sermon

This title page from a 1522 Luther sermon on “unrighteous Mammon” is a fine example of the many small, quarto volumes in the Folger’s large collection of works from the Protestant Reformation. Eight hundred and fifty of these came from the Reformation collection of the Swiss writer and scholar Emanuel Stickelberger. Among the reformers represented in the Folger collection are Luther, Calvin, Erasmus, Melanchthon, and Zwingli. 

Here, a richly detailed woodcut by Lucas Cranach the Elder includes a picture of a printing press at lower left, a visual acknowledgment of the vital role that printing played in spreading the Reformation across Europe. Cranach’s other images include a battling wolf and sheep, evoking the common early Protestant accusation that some priests behaved more like wolves than shepherds toward their flocks. Many Reformation works, including this one, were marked up by their early readers.

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