The Transfiguration, late 15th century

Aelbert Bouts, c.1455 - 1549

And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.

Matthew, 17, 1 - 3

The Road to Calvary, c.1495

Juan and Diego Sanchez, 15th century

Between Christ’s arrest and his Crucifixion, the Gospels tell how he was tormented by the soldiers of Pontius Pilate. Juan and Diego Sanchez here give a stark account of the brutality he suffered at the hands of his captors

The Annunciation, early 16th century

attributed to Bernart van Orley, c.1492 - 1542

Part cathedral, part boudoir, the interior in which Mary here receives the message that she is to bear the son of God never existed outside the imagination of the painter

Virgin and Child, c.1528

Joos van Cleve, c.1485 - c.1540

Little breasts of the Mother Mary
Shining like little torches
Offering milk to the Son
They are little sparks of nourishment
Through which sins are abolished
Smelling of perfume

On the Breasts of the Virgin Mary, 15th century poem

Pastoral landscape with Lake Albano and Castel Gandolfo, 1639

Claude Lorrain, 1600 – 1682

From the haziness of the Villa at Castel Gandolfo,
The mind is elevated to contemplate the beauties of eternity

From a sonnet by Pope Urban VIII, published in 1635

The Knight, Death and the Devil, 1513

Albrecht Dürer, 1471 – 1528

Because you must fight three unfair enemies, the flesh, the devil and the world, this third rule shall be proposed to you: all those spooks and phantoms which come upon you as in the very gorges of Hades must be deemed for nought

Erasmus of Rotterdam, A Handbook for the Christian Soldier, 1504

Armour for horse and man, c.1520

Unknown makers, 16th century

A suit of armour was not only intended to protect its wearer from missiles, swords or hammer blows. A suit such as this drew attention to one’s social status, one’s fashion consciousness and, by virtue of its great cost, one’s wealth

Claymore, date unknown

Unknown maker, 16th century

This is one of the few surviving examples of the ‘true Claymore,’ and is distinguished by several features which seem deliberately intended to evoke earlier medieval war swords

Medal of Erasmus, 1519

Quentin Metsys, 1466 – 1530

The faintly amused looking man on the obverse of this medal is identified by the letters ER and ROT as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, the great classical scholar, satirist, theologian and translator of the Bible

The Adoration of the Magi, c.1540,/a>

‘A.H’, mid 16th century

Alabaster relief sculpture with a religious theme was particularly popular in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries

Mary Tudor, 1553

Hans Eworth, active 1540-1574

Mary Tudor may not have shared the physical bulk of her father, Henry VIII, or subscribed to his brand of Reformed Christianity, but she did inherit his love of personal adornment and display