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Martin Luther sermon

This title page from a 1522 Luther sermon on “unrighteous Mammon” is a fine example of the Folger’s large collection of works from the Protestant Reformation.

The title is in blackletter typeface, with handwriting surrounding it that is difficult to read here. The title and publication information are surrounded by a rectangle of images showing various types of animals fighting, a drunk man, and a man carrying dead birds over his shoulder. A large G intercepted with an I sits at the bottom of the page.

Martin Luther. Eyn Sermon von dem unrechten Mammon. Wittenberg, [Johann Rhau-Grunenberg], 1522. Folger call number 218-463q.

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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The Reformation at Folger

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Caroline Duroselle-Melish

As this year marks the 500th anniversary of Luther’s 95 theses and along with it, the beginning of the Reformation, a blog post on the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Reformation collection is in order.See also the blog post “Folger as a…