Opulence and piety
ALTHOUGH they were contemporaries, Henry VIII of England and Elector Frederick III ‘the Wise’ of Saxony probably never met.
Had they done so, these Renaissance rulers might have been struck by how much their interests—hunting, love, dynastic rivalries, artistic patronage and the cause of religious reform— coincided, if the works of Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553) are anything to go by. Despite his prolific output and influence, Cranach’s life and work is
