The King Summoning the Servant, from The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant, bound in Thesaurus Sacrarum historiarum Veteris et Novi Testamenti 1585

This engraving, made sometime in the early modern period, depicts a scene from the biblical parable of the unmerciful servant. It’s bound in a collection of images from the Old and New Testaments. Here, we see the king summoning a servant to give an account of his debts, with scribes looking on. This imagery would have been very familiar to contemporary viewers, as it draws on popular visual codes to create meaning. The architecture, dress, and even the presence of a dog locate the scene in a wealthy European court. These cultural references were important in making the religious stories relevant to the everyday lives of ordinary people. To understand this print, one might research the history of religious publishing, the social functions of the church, or the economies of early modern Europe. In this way, we can understand the print as a product of specific social and institutional forces.