Numa Pompilius' bøger brændes 1574

Tobias Stimmer made this woodcut print, depicting "Numa Pompilius' Books Being Burned," sometime in the late 16th century. Here we see a public spectacle of book burning, an act with a long and fraught history. The scene references the Roman king Numa Pompilius whose religious writings were deemed heretical and ordered to be destroyed by the senate. Stimmer was Swiss, and his work reflects the religious and political turmoil of the Reformation. The act of publicly burning books, especially religious texts, was common during this period, with both Protestant and Catholic authorities engaging in it to suppress dissenting ideas. This print, therefore, speaks to the power of institutions to control information and enforce orthodoxy. To better understand this artwork, we might examine the history of censorship and book burning, the role of religious authorities in 16th-century Europe, and the biography of Tobias Stimmer himself. Art like this reminds us that its meaning is always tied to its historical and institutional context.