Frederick the Wise died 500 years ago – Luther dedicated a sermon to the deceased, and an elaborate ensemble of three different monuments was erected over the grave in the castle church, commemorating the sovereign. The funeral sermon and the grave inscriptions of the Wettin Elector are testimonies to changes in funeral culture at the transition from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period: in the 16th and 17th centuries, the texts were more detailed, more personal and written increasingly rarely in Latin; the Protestant certainty of blessing began to replace the Catholic fear of the afterlife. The exhibition is dedicated to these changes in the textual testimonies of the commemoration of the dead in the pre-modern era and, against this background, will at the same time provide an insight into how death was dealt with up to modern times.

Special guided tours through the exhibition:

Thursdays, 12:45pm during the Book Break (30 min),

10 December 2025, 5pm (60 min).

Lectures on the exhibition will take place on the following dates:

10 December 2025, 6pm (Prof. Dr Klaus Krüger),

15 January 2026, 6 pm (Prof. Dr Michael Hecht).