In an unusual subject, where Jesus sends out the apostles to pursue their Christian mission, the apostles flank their Lord, who stands tall at the composition’s center, located again in the open wilderness of spiritual retreat. In the distant background stands an isolated mountaintop castle, evocative of the actual retreats of the Saxon dukes, sometimes depicted in the backgrounds of Cranach paintings, though not so specific in this case as to be identifiable (Müller 2009). Here Peter is singled out at the left foreground, looking down at a purse and discarded cloak, as if speaking the accompanying lines (Acts 3: 6), which refer to his preaching but also to his denial of riches, “Silver and gold I do not have [but what I do have I give you].” Added to the image in the Passional is a rhetorical question in a mixture of Latin and German, addressed to the current pope as successor of Peter, “Ubi is dann patrimonium Petri?” (where then is your patrimony, Peter?) So here the original preaching of the Word by the first among disciples is contrasted with the worldliness of the modern papacy of Luther’s day, which prizes wealth and luxury.

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The other text chosen (Matthew 10: 9-10) also emphasizes Jesus’s charge to his apostles to pursue acts of healing and ministry rather than luxury, “neither gold nor silver.” Significantly another purse lies on the ground in the right foreground beneath the other group of apostles, signifying their own self-denial in the cause of their mission.

Works Cited

• Müller, Matthias. “Architektonische Spurenlese in Einter Untergegangenen Residezlandschaft. Eine Annäherung an Die Brandenburgische Residenzarchitektur Des 16. Jahrhundets Und Ein Ausblick Auf Cranachs Gemalte Schlossdarstellungen.” edited by Elke Anna Werner, 99–109. Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2009.
• Partridge, Loren. The Art of Renaissance Rome. New York: Harry Abrams, 1996.
• Stinger, Charles. The Renaissance in Rome. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985.