The Martyrdom of Saint John

This is the only scene in the series not drawn directly from the Book of Revelation. Albrecht Dürer instead turns to an episode from the saint’s life, recounted in the Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine. John is arrested on the orders of the emperor Domitian and brought before the Porta Latina in Rome.

There, according to the legend, he is thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil but emerges miraculously unharmed. He is then exiled to the island of Patmos, where he received his visions and wrote the Apocalypse. In the background, the architecture evokes the site of the martyrdom, while the oriental-style clothing of the figures alludes to the Ottoman Empire, perceived in Dürer’s time as a threat to the Christian West.

This image does more than recount a miracle: it prepares the beginning of the vision, as John’s life gives way to the narrative of the Apocalypse