The Four Apostles: Saints John and Peter

In January 1525, shortly before Nuremberg formally went over to the Reformation, the city council put three young painters on trial, the brothers Sebald and Barthel Beham and Georg Pencz, all from the circle around Dürer. They had questioned baptism, the sacrament and the council's own authority, and they were banished from the city. A year later Dürer painted this panel and its partner and gave them to that same council. Here John stands in front with an open book, and Peter, holding the key, leans in to read it. The verses lettered beneath the two saints come from their own letters. Peter's warns that false teachers will arise among the people, and John's tells the reader not to believe every spirit but to test it. Many historians read that warning as aimed at radicals in the city as much as at Rome. The limewood panel is more than two metres tall.