This French engraving satirizes papal and ecclesiastical corruption through an elaborate interior scene of ritual deception. Robed clergy conduct ceremonies around a central table while a demonic figure presides from a throne beneath a canopy, surrounded by open books and papers marked with Latin text. The composition inherits the visual vocabulary of Northern European print satire—complex architectural settings, layered narrative detail, numbered annotations—establishing conventions that would echo through Hogarth, Gillray, and beyond into modern comics. Religious institutional critique, a staple of Reformation and post-Reformation polemic, here merges religious iconography with infernal burlesque. The engraving's dense satirical apparatus—combining image, numbered key, and polemical text—demonstrates how early modern prints encoded political argument in visual form.
About this artifact
- Date
- 1731
- Rights
- Public domain — free to view, share, and reuse.
- Restoration
- Digitally restored and hosted by ComicBooks.com.
Part of our mission to preserve and restore the public-domain heritage of the medium.