500th ANNIVERSARY OF MARTIN LUTHER
National Exhibition at Wartburg Castle
“Martin Luther and the Germans” May 4 through November 5
2017 makes the 500th Anniversary from the beginning of the Reformation in Germany and Martin Luther’s nailing of his 95 Theses to a church door in his home town of Wittenberg on the 31st of October in 1517. To commemorate this earth shattering change in the cultural life of the world a number of special exhibitions are being presented through November 2017 to explore this history, one of three national exhibitions presented in locations closely associated with Martin Luther’s life, Wartburg Castle in Eisenach, The Luther House in Wittenberg, and the German National History Museum in Berlin.
From May 4 through November 5 Wartburg Castle in Eisenach is hosting the exhibition “Luther and the Germans”. Wartburg Castle is where Martin Luther hid out in the guise of traveling knight after his excommunication and return from the Council at Worms where he refused to recant his views.
Wartburg Castle is one of the most popular sites of Luther’s travels where it was in a small chamber in one end of the castle where Luther began his translation of the New Testament of the Bible into German and both changed a religious doctrine to support his idea that the way to salvation was through faith alone, but also laid a foundation for the written German language. Up until Luther’s bible and the printing press, the German language was spread through a collection of dialects.
The Exhibition
The "martin Luther and the Germans: exhibition centers on the question of how the eras of German history formed its own unique view of Luther, presented in three major themes: Wartburg as a Luther site, the cultural history of Luther’s Protestant Doctrine, and the political formation of the Restoration. A collection of paintings, printing works and original manuscripts, as well as unique artifacts from the period intend to show the fundamental shifts in art and politics, present the Reformation in the context of cultural developments.
The exhibition winds through the magnificent historic rooms and stately chambers of the medieval castle with three hundred individual exhibits from the Wartburg Foundation collection or on loan from other institutions, including interactive media stations. The tour ends with the famous Luther Room (Lutherstube) where the monk, had grown a beard and his hair long to love as the Knight George (Junker Jorge) while he worked on his Bible translation, including the ink stain on the wall where he threw his inkwell at the Devil.
Highlights of the exhibition include 16th century paintings and graphic works from the period of Luther’s life by Lucas Cranach the Elder, Lucas Cranach the Younger, and Albrecht Dürer, as well as more modern interpretations from the 19th and 20th centuries, ranging from the heroic to more the more stylized and subversive. Historical objects of German national history include an original double eagle banner from the Holy Roman Empire from 1532, original documents regarding the Wartburgfest from 1817, a recreated printing press from 16th Century and a replica of the golden bejeweled crown of the Holy Roman Emperor of Charles the Great.
Visiting Wartburg Castle “Luther and the Germans” Exhibition
The Wartburg Castle special exhibit is open daily from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm. A single admission ticket is €12. Concessions): €8.00 School-age children: €5.00. Free for children under 6. Combi-ticket (all three national exhibitions): €24.00 . © Bargain Travel Europe
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