In June 1525, Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk, married the nun Katharina von Bora after both had shunned their monastic orders, causing an international scandal. <br><br>The Catholic Church, to which Luther had belonged, required its monks and priests to be celibate to mirror Christ’s own example. But in a 1520 treatise (which followed his infamous <em>Ninety-Five Theses</em> (1517)) Luther had criticised the claimed spiritual superiority of celibacy, arguing that marriage too was a sanctified state and thus clergy should be free to marry.<sup>1</sup><br> <br>Upon his marriage five years later, Luther carried out the equivalent of a modern-day publicity campaign, commissioning a diptych of himself and Katharina from Lucas Cranach the Elder, hundreds of copies of which were distributed amongst both his supporters and detractors.<sup>2</sup><br> <br>Luther may have wanted to be well recognised to ensure his safety after his excommunication by the Pope and outlawing by Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, in 1521. The campaign may also have been designed to spur the theologians leading the Protestant Reformation to live out their own teachings and marry.<br><br>But the main motivation behind the commission was probably the same as that behind his marriage: ‘to spite the pope and the devil’<sup>3</sup>. <br>Cranach depicts Luther with a bulky frame, while Katharina is presented as a trophy wife — young, beautiful, and curvaceous.<br> <br>Luther asked for a copy to be sent to the holy fathers at the Council in Mantua alongside a painting of a man by himself, symbolising the unmarried life. He urged them to decide ‘if they would prefer marriage or celibacy’.<sup>4</sup><br> <br>Katharina’s charms were clearly intended to add the power of temptation to Luther’s rhetoric.<br>