3-008-949 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Castle of Wartburg, Germany, the "Patmos" of Luther - from a sketch by our special artist, 1862. 'Wartburg Castle [was] the asylum of Luther from May 4, 1521, to March 6, 1522. Luther was wont to compare Wartburg Castle to the Island of Patmos, to which the wrath of Domitian, in former times, had banished the Apostle John... An hour's walk up the steep ascent brings the visitor to the summit, whence a glorious panorama opens to the view. A sea of rocks and wooded hills in every variety of form undulates around; whilst nearly a thousand feet below Eisenach is faintly discerned, appearing as a pretty little model of a German town - the whole forming as lovely a scene as is to he witnessed in Thuringia...The Duke of Saxe-Weimar has gone to great expense in restoring the principal part of Wartburg Castle to the same state it was in the fifteenth century'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.