Now, nearly twenty-nine, he was a far cry from the stout figure we see in Cranach’s later paintings. Though it may be hard for us to imagine Martin Luther as bony and frail, at this time in his life he was indisputably more ibex than ox. In fact, fully seven years after this conversation—at the 1519 Leipzig disputation—he was described by an observer as being so thin one could almost see his bones through his skin.
