Early Modern Studies. The Roman Monster : : An Icon of the Papal Antichrist In Reformation Polemics / / Lawrence Buck.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Penn State University Press Complete eBook-Package 2014-2015
• VerfasserIn: Buck, Lawrence,
• Place / Publishing House: University Park, PA : : Penn State University Press, , [2014]; ©2014
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Language: English
• Series: Early Modern Studies ; 13
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (272 p.)

In December 1495 the Tiber River flooded the city of Rome causing extensive drowning and destruction. When the water finally receded, a rumor began to circulate that a grotesque monstrosity had been discovered in the muddy detritus—the Roman monster. The creature itself is inherently fascinating, consisting of an eclectic combination of human and animal body parts. The symbolism of these elements, the interpretations that religious controversialists read into them, and the history of the image itself, help to document antipapal polemics from fifteenth-century Rome to the Elizabethan religious settlement.This study examines the iconography of the image of the Roman monster and offers ideological reasons for associating the image with the pre-Reformation Waldensians and Bohemian Brethren. It accounts for the reproduction and survival of the monster's image in fifteenth-century Bohemia and provides historical background on the topos of the papal Antichrist, a concept that Philip Melanchthon associated with the monster. It contextualizes Melanchthon’s tract, “The Pope-Ass Explained,” within the first five years of the Lutheran movement, and it documents the popularity of the Roman monster within the polemical and apocalyptic writings of the Reformation.This is a careful examination and interpretation of all relevant primary documents and secondary historical literature in telling the story of the origins and impact of the most famous monstrous portent of the Reformation era.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Introduction: The Roman Monster: Historical Context -- Chapter 1: The Roman Monster of 1496 -- Chapter 2: The Roman Monster in the Kingdom of Bohemia 1498–1523 -- Chapter 3: The Papal Antichrist -- Chapter 4: Philip Melanchthon’s The Pope-Ass Explained (1523) -- Chapter 5: The Diffusion of the Roman Monster within the Discourse of the Reformation -- Conclusion The Pope-Ass as a Trope of Antipapalism in Reformation Politics -- Appendix: The Pope-Ass Explained (1523) by Philip Melanchthon -- Bibliography -- Index