Art Institute of Chicago

Wittenberg Reliquary Book (Wittenberger Heiligthumsbuch)

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, 1472-1553)

Date

1510

Medium

Woodcut engraving and letterpress on cream laid paper, in original limp brown goatskin with wrap-around fore-edge flap, decorated with a blind outer fillet frame with intersecting interior blind lines

Culture

Germany

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Lucas Cranach produced this souvenir catalogue to promote the prized collection of relics and reliquaries of his patron, Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony. Copies were printed on paper and more luxurious vellum, although the paper printings are now scarcer. The sequence of woodcuts walks pilgrims through every stage of the yearly viewing; each relic offered a hundred days of indulgence. Pilgrims witnessing them all would have amassed an impressive 500,500 days (1,371 years) of respite from Purgatory. Yet Frederick’s protégé, the radical Martin Luther, would soon speak out against the practice of granting indulgences, and the relic collection would be shown for the last time in 1522. The pages visible here depict Mary Magdalene’s hair, nineteen particles of Saint Cecilia, and other relics.

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