On First Looking into Martin Luther: Treasures of the Reformation

As a teenager, the odes of John Keats rather fascinated me—none more so than his effusive, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer." Here Keats expressed his wonderment at the rugged and, by then, two-hundred-year-old rendering of the Iliad into English by George Chapman (1616). Perhaps the three-city exhibit ("Here I Stand: Luther Exhibitions USA 2016") put together by the Federal Republic of Germany and especially by the Foundation Schloss Friedenstein Gotha and the Luther Memorials Foundation of Saxony-Anhalt, had a similar, profound effect upon the countless American visitors to the Minneapolis Institute of Art ("Martin Luther: Art and the Reformation"), the Morgan Library and Museum (New York City; "Word and Image: Martin Luther's Reformation") and the Pitts Theology Library of Emory University (Atlanta; "Law and Grace: Martin Luther, Lucas Cranach, and the Promise of Salvation"). Here, in displays unthinkable before the reunification of Germany, American viewers could gain remarkable insights into the life and times of Martin Luther.

In his famous poem, Keats compares reading Chapman's Iliad to discovering a new planet (Uranus in 1781) or the vast expanse of eastern shore of the Pacific Ocean. Indeed, these three exhibitions remarkably revealed a completely new landscape of Martin Luther and the Reformation to the discerning viewer, a buena vista captured in the two handsome accompanying volumes: the catalogue, Martin Luther: Treasures of the Reformation (Dresden: Sandstein, 2016), and the essays, Martin Luther and the Reformation (Dresden: Sandstein, 2016). The latter contains articles by some of the best German and American scholars of the Reformation, including several not unknown to the pages of Lutheran Quarterly: Mary Jane Haemig, Volker Leppin, Martin Treu, Dorothea Wendebourg, and Robert Kolb.

The three exhibits, however, stand head and shoulders over anything previously assembled for the United States and are fully captured in the catalogue. For those who missed these exhibits (this reviewer saw the larger ones in Minneapolis and New York City), the catalogue serves the role of Keats's ode and captures the imagination as the remarkable set of documents, art, archeological finds, and even furnishings unfold in its pages. Yet nothing prepared me, as I rounded the corner in by far the largest exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, for coming face to face with the "Debate Lectern," removed from the Luther House during its recent renovation for display in the exhibition. This imposing (fourteen-foot-tall!) baroque object still reflects Wittenberg's pride in both its beginnings (with a portrait of the University's first rector, Martin Pollich) and also its fame (with a picture of its most famous teacher, Luther). For those unable to be much "travell'd in the realms of gold" (or, at least Saxony), this dais provided a remarkable vision of the Luther House and its treasures. In addition, the even more imposing, twenty-foot-tall Eisleben pulpit, where Luther preached his last sermon, was also on display, along with furnishings from the Luther House's "Luther Room."

Some of the most interesting "new" material consisted of the archaeological artifacts, many only recently uncovered, which revealed daily life in the sixteenth century. The viewer could marvel at "Martin's" childhood marbles, whistles, and pieces of pottery, glassware, and ceramic tiles unearthed at Luther's parents' house in Mansfeld (where he grew up) and at other Luther sites, all demonstrating the well-to-do nature of Luther's upbringing. At the same time, the exhibits did not neglect the religious and political sides to everyday life before and after the Reformation. The exhibits began with in-depth looks at Luther's cultural milieu, comprised of sections on Luther's origins, worldly power and art, pre-Reformation piety and Luther's scholarly life through 1521. Visitors to the Morgan Library could easily overlook one rarity from this latter section (and there were many: charters for the University of Wittenberg, printed copies of the 95 Theses, letters of indulgence, chests for collecting the clinking coins): a letter, namely, from Albert of Brandenburg to his counselors (no. 150), announcing his decision to notify...