Michael Ostendorfer, Pilgrimage to the Blessed Lady, 1523 (Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg, I, 100, 147)

In Ratisbon, a large pilgrimage movement took place from 1519 onwards for a few years. In 1519, the council of the imperial city had expelled the Jewish population from Ratisbon since they were blamed for the city’s economic problems. Their residential area had been demolished. When the synagogue was destroyed, a stonemason had a serious accident, but nevertheless he appeared at work the next day. At the instigation of the preacher Balthasar Hubmaier (around 1485–1528), who had supported the persecution of the Jews, this event was propagated as a miracle.

In 1519, a wooden chapel was built for worship of the so-called “Beautiful Virgin Mary”, to which many peasants, women and sick people went on pilgrimage, as depicted in this woodcut by Michael Ostendorfer (c.1490–1559). The pilgrims were able to purchase the single-leaf print.

Next to the church, the torn-down houses of the Jewish quarter are visible. Several pilgrimage processions are going to the church; around the statue of the Virgin Mary pilgrims throw themselves in ecstasy to the earth. The replica of a Madonna painted by Saint Luke – worshipped as miraculous – can be seen through the open door of the church. The flag at the church spire was designed by Albrecht Altdorfer (around 1480–1538) for this pilgrimage site and shows the Blessed Virgin with the emblematic keys of the city.

This copy comes from the possession of Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528). In the handwritten note, the Nuremberg painter criticised this pilgrimage in 1523 as “against Holy Scripture”. The wooden chapel was replaced eventually by a stone building. After the Reformation was introduced in Ratisbon in 1542, this Neupfarrkirche became the first Protestant parish church in the city.

To the digitised copy