Eyn Wunderliche Weyssagung von dem Babstumb : Medieval prophecy into Reformation polemic

This dissertation is an interdisciplinary study, tracing the reception of a single, primarily visual, late-medieval prophecy concerning the papacy--the pseudo-Joachimite Vaticinia de Summis Pontificibus, or Pope Prophecies. After preliminary chapters in which the early manuscript history of the prophecy, the iconography and sources of images, and a theory of visual prophecy are presented, this study focuses on the 1527 refashioning of the Pope Prophecies as Protestant propaganda by Andreas Osiander, Hans Sachs, and Erhard Schon entitled Eyn Wunderliche Weyssagung von dem Babstumb and the numerous later editions that are responses to and adaptations of this polemical work. Osiander\u27s edition and its afterlife are studied from a variety of perspectives and with a number of methodological tools, including iconography, local history, the social history of the Reformation, folklore, and reception history in order to shed more light on how prophecy was understood and refashioned as propaganda in the sixteenth century. Broader issues discussed as well include the rhetoric of prophecy prefaces and the use of images in Reformation and Counter-Reformation polemic. Included as an appendix is an English translation of Osiander\u27s and Sachs\u27s text