Philip Melanchthon

On the obverse is a portrait of the scholar and religious reformer Philip Melanchthon (1497 – 1560); there is text on the reverse. This is the second type of two medals that Hagenauer made of Melanchthon. Both are dated 1543, but the first has an “I” added under the year “XLVI” of the reformer’s age.(1) This annotation indicates that the model for the medal was probably carved in Melanchthon’s forty-sixth year and cast after his forty-seventh birthday on 16 February 1543. On the second type, probably dating from later that year, the lettering was rearranged to “XLVII.” Melanchthon sat for Hagenauer in Cologne during a convention organized by Archbishop Hermann von Wied, which was attended by the Lutheran reformer to mediate between Catholics and Protestants. The piece is possibly a sixteenth-century aftercast.