Earth and Ore: Materializing Transalpine Relations on the Eve of the Reformation Available to Purchase

In 1519, soil from the Campo Santo Teutonico next to St. Peter's in Rome — a burial place thought to contain earth from Jerusalem — was spread over the extramural cemetery in the Saxon town of Annaberg. This article asks how the reception of the soil from Rome was shaped by the local community and its landscape at a time of religious change. It demonstrates the potential for both positive and negative views on the part of Annaberg's citizens, arguing that these were informed not only by traditional religiosity and reform ideas, but also by the distinctive visual and material culture of a silver mining community. In this way, the article offers new perspectives on the transalpine connections of the Campo Santo Teutonico, the role of the substance of the landscape in creating and criticizing links with the Roman Church at the start of the Reformation, and the relationship between materialities of religion and the environment.