Thursday 5 July 2007

Luther's Galatians


Each of us in the seminar is conducting research on a particular topic relating in some way to printing during the Reformation. My project concerns Martin Luther's Commentary on St. Paul's Letter to the Galatians. I became interested in this book because Vassar owns a copy of the first English edition of the work, printed in 1575. Luther re-wrote the text several times, and there were 21 printings between 1519 and 1546. Most of the printings were in Latin, though some were in German, and one was in Dutch. I am focusing on the paratextual elements of the commentary, that is, everything outside of the text itself. Pictured here is the title page of the German translation of 1538. It features an important Reformation pictorial theme: the Law (on the left) and the Gospel (on the right).