The Apostles' Creed (Das Symbolum der Heiligen Aposteln)

1548

Book with fifteen woodcuts with letterpress in black on cream laid paper, in eighteenth-century full brown sheepskin, sewn on raised bands, with gold tooled decoration on inner-edges of boards, blind lines and gold titling on the spine, hand-sewn silk headbands, marbled endsheets, and a purple silk page marker

15.4 × 0.8 cm (6.1 × 0.3 in)

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In the collection of Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago · as of July 2026

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FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

Lucas Cranach’s Saint Simon —naked, trussed upside-down, and partially sawed in half—depicts the apostle en route to his full dismemberment (which made possible his eventual distribution in relic form). Evidently well-received in the single-sheet 1512 Catholic series, here the woodblocks were reprinted to illustrate Martin Luther’s German translation of the Apostles’ Creed. Despite the illustrations’ gratuitously violent detail, the Protestant publisher’s dedication to his daughters referred to them as “fine and pleasing images.”

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