The Apostle Simon

Albrecht Dürer.
St. Simon the Apostle.
Engraving. Nuremberg, 1523. (BRA0254)

Dürer added two more engravings to his series of apostles in 1523: St. Bartholomew and St. Simon. In the print of St. Simon, the artist dispensed with the medieval tradition of the halo, concentrating instead on the apostle’s grave dignity and the terrible specter of his attribute, the jagged saw with which he was martyred. At this point in Dürer’s career his religious subject matter was entirely biblical, likely in response to his admiration of Martin Luther, whose scripturally-based arguments against the traditions of the Roman Church led the city of Nuremberg to adopt the Protestant reforms in 1525.