Pope donkey
Der Papstesel (" The Bapstesel zu Rom ") is the title of a satirical pamphlet published in 1523 in Wittenberg by Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon with a woodcut that is also named , which was probably copied from an Italian copper engraving .
It represents a monster that was allegedly found dead in the Tiber in Rome in 1496 : a mythical creature with a donkey's head, a woman's torso, scaly arms and legs, ox hooves and eagle's claws for feet, a bearded devil's mask over its rump and a tail extending into a dragon's head ; in the background the Castel Sant'Angelo and the then papal state prison ( Torre di Nona ), between the two the Tiber with the inscription: "Tevere" and the date "Janvarii 1496".
A copy of the original Italian copperplate engraving has not yet been found. But it is very likely that it was received in a copy by the engraver and goldsmith Wenzel von Olmütz , which perhaps served as a model for the Wittenberg woodcut.
Konrad Lange saw in the depiction a mockery of the people under the rule of Pope Alexander VI. degraded Roma , plagued by all sorts of calamities , while others saw it as just one of the representations of mythical animals common in the Middle Ages, which the Reformers in Germany had only interpreted as a satire on the papacy and used for agitational purposes.
