Lorenz von Bibra (1459-1519) was born into the Franconian nobility and served as prince-bishop of Würzburg from 1495 until his death. As prince-bishop of Würzburg, he was among the most powerful prince-bishops in the German lands. His friendship with reformer Martin Luther and sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider (1460-1531) suggests that he was receptive to the Reformation. It was Bibra himself who commissioned Riemenschneider to create his funerary monument in the Würzburg Cathedral (shown here). After Bibra’s death, Riemenschneider, a city councilman who went on to become mayor of Wurzburg, became embroiled in a series of political battles with Bibra’s successor. The conflict escalated in the wake of the German Peasants’ War. As a result, Riemenschneider was imprisoned and tortured, stripped of most of his possessions, and prevented from receiving important artistic commissions. He fell into oblivion and was first rediscovered in the nineteenth century.