Lucas Cranach
Luther's friend and neighbor Lucas Cranach was a good man to
know. Born to a painter appropriately named Mahler in Kronach,
Upper Franconia, Cranach adopted the name of his hometown. Not
much is known of Cranach's early life except that he once owned a
house in Gotha where he married Barbara Brengbier, the daughter
of a burgher. Around 1500, when Cranach was in his late twenties,
he worked for a time in Vienna before he was hired as a court
painter and decorator to Friedrich the Wise, Elector of Saxony, in
1505. The Elector's home of Wittenberg was surely unlike glorious
Vienna, for it had a population of 2,000 people all living in 400
houses nestled inside the city walls. However, it was going places,
thanks in part to the new university Elector Friedrich had founded a
few years earlier and to the talented and distinguished academic
staff he had recruited. Lucas Cranach the Elder,  left
Elector Friedrich owned a massive collection of relics, ranging from
what he thought to be a hair from the beard of Christ and a twig
from the burning bush to a wide variety of holy bones and skeletal
remains, including hundreds of teeth. These treasures, over 5,000
relics, were arranged throughout the castle church in several aisles
and pilgrims came from wide and far, paying to visit the awesome
exhibit. To encourage even more lucrative tourist traffic, Cranach
designed and illustrated a printed souvenir catalogue in 1509
advertising the relics. Friedrich was also a fan of jousting as well as
an avid hunter, and Cranach produced a series of intricate woodcuts
depicting these events. He also designed banquet decor and table
ornaments, painted signs and drew up heraldic devices for shields
and tournaments. He was by life's end well-travelled and had
served as court painter to 3 successive electors: Friedrich the Wise,
Johann the Constant and Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous.
Luther and the Wittenburg Reformers, left
With his prolific workshop, and side businesses in real estate,
publishing, and even a liquor-licensed pharmacy, Cranach not only
became one of the richest men in Saxony, he was popular and was
a three time mayor of Wittenberg. Cranach and Luther were friends
before 1517, and it was Cranach who introduced Luther to his
future wife, renegade nun Katharina of Bora, and was best man at
their wedding. The men were godfathers of each other’s children.
Cranach's three sons were all artists: Johann Lucas, Hans and
Lucas the Younger, who one day took over his father's workshop.
Cranach's daughter Barbara married Christian Brück (Pontanus) and they were the ancestors of both
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron. Cranach gladly pumped
out Lutheran propaganda from his workshop. In 1521, he and Philipp Melancthon collaborated to
produce the most sensational pamphlet of the 16th century, 'The Passional of Christ and Antichrist',
which contained 26 paired woodcuts with captions contrasting the evangelical Christ of Luther with
papal abuses. Its biting commentary burned into the public mind unflattering images such as the Pope
and his cronies tumbling out of a witch’s womb. He produced more than 100 woodcuts, numerous
engravings and the first German edition of the New Testament in 1522.
Lucas Cranach dedicated his famous “Wittenberg Altarpiece” of 1547 on the day of the Battle of
Mühlberg, a decisive military defeat of Lutheran forces by Holy Roman Emperor Karl V.
Cranach subsequently lost his court position and joined the Elector Johann Friedrich in exile in 1550,
ending up in Weimar, where he died three years later.
Cranach continued to paint nudes and portraits, and he
also worked on commissions for powerful Catholics
such as Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg, whose sale
of indulgences had driven Luther's initial protest! The
divisions between Catholic and Protestant had not yet
hardened and, in fact, Cardinal Albrecht even sent a
wedding gift to Luther's bride.
In 1527, Cranach painted the tender portraits of Luther's
elderly father and mother shown at the left
Other Members of Martin Luther's Fan Club
Argula von Grumbach was branded as a "heretical bitch" and a "wretched whore and pathetic
daughter of Eve."  She is one of the first women whose writings were published in defense of
Luther and the Reformation. Argula von Grumbach was born around 1492 at Burg Ehrenfels bei
Hemau into the noble Bavarian family von Stauff. Her father gave her the German Koberger
Bible in German when she was 10 years old which influenced her life greatly. She had a stormy
youth, losing both parents to the plague in 1509 and having to go live with an uncle (he was later
tortured and executed) in 1516 in the court of Bavaria.
Argula wrote a letter in defense of Arsacius Seehofer, a young student at the University of Ingolstadt who had publicly
supported the teachings of Luther. In order to escape execution, Seehofer was forced to revoke his teachings with a
public confession. On September 20, 1523, she wrote a letter of protest to the university, asking that a debate be held in
German.  This private letter ended up being published in 14 editions and spread far and wide. It was a "best seller."  
Then, she commenced a letter writing campaign to the leading princes of the empire, calling for reformation and an end to
censorship. It has still not yet come.
It is here, as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Kunigunde, that she met her husband, a Catholic named Friedrich von
Grumbach. Together they had four children, all of them as Protestants despite her husband's faith. After her husband's
death, Argula remarried and became politically active.
Argula met with and conducted an extensive correspondence with Luther, Osiander, and many other leading reformers,
princes and influential personages. She is known to have authored several letters and eight pamphlets in defense of the
Reformation, the first of which was published in sixteen editions in which her excellent knowledge of scripture is displayed.
Seven other writings followed the first pamphlet and it is estimated that 30,000 copies of her eight writings were
circulating throughout the Holy Roman Empire within two years. Her writings brought her to the height of controversy in
1523 and 1524, yet her own strong revulsion toward censorship was such that she included even letters critical of her in
her writings. She died around 1554.
In Wittenberg, Luther lived only a few doors away from two of the greatest German painters of the
day, Lucius Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) and his son, the Younger. When Luther published
treatises and encouraged people to see the papacy as evil, he knew words were not sufficient and he
asked Lucas Cranach to do a series of inflammatory woodcuts which Luther wrote verses for.
Cranach obliged him enthusiastically with decorative initials and 117 woodcuts.