Steffens's splendid book, the outcome of his 2006 Free University of Berlin art history thesis, with telling plates including a colour section (pp. 145–60), analyses an obsessive ‘memorialisation’ of Luther in the century following peace in 1815. As happened with the romantic rediscovery of the Lutheran sung liturgy after a long quarter-century of revolution and war, the restoration of Germany's Lutheran heritage, the places where Luther lived and died, was considered nostalgically a ‘national matter’. One might say that where the eighteenth century had renovated medieval church walls with whitewash, and had collected ‘Gothic’ church inventory together in the vaults to let light in on an edifying sermon, the nineteenth century put it all back against a bare masonry, and with additions: what they thought was lost as a result of either renovations or historical circumstance. But as the century wore on, particularly with a growing professionalism in conservation methods amongst architects and specialist interior craftsmen, it became apparent, as George Dehio put it in a memorable Strasbourg University lecture (1905), that the result had been to restore ‘what had never really existed’ (pp. 338–9). Architects who tried conservation, notably with Wittenberg's Schlosskirche after 1844, Ferdinand von Quast, inspector of Prussian monuments (1843–77), arguing for late Gothic as depicted in Cranach's woodcut of 1509 (p. 238), were ditched by the times; in this case by poor financial support, and by the 1848 revolution. He had more success with his conservation work (1858–72) on the local Romanesque abbey, Gernrode (p. 961). Restoration rather than conservation followed with the two houses in nearby Eisleben where Luther was born and where he died. His birthplace was destroyed in the town fire of 1689, restored as a Frankean poor house and school (1693–1770), and eventually, after much financial haggling between town and crown, completely rebuilt in 1867. Where he died, Markt 56, became a heritage site as early as 1546. But in the age of reason Luther's deathbed and original furniture were destroyed (1707) to stop popular superstitious practice, and burgher opinion opted (after 1726) for Andreaskirchplatz 7 as having the more authentic record. The Prussian state opted for this too as buyer in 1862, and this house was promptly rebuilt (1865–9). Eisenach's Wartburg and Wittenberg's Schlosskirche, complete the four core chapters. Piling Pelion on Ossa, both Wartburg and Schlosskirche became through passionate restoration, places illustrative of an imagined Germanised Reformation culture rather than anything which might point to Luther's devotional ‘A simple way to pray for a good friend’ (1535). Steffens is therefore a must-read in conjunction with the earlier superb revisionary 1983 Nuremberg quincentenary exhibition catalogue, Martin Luther und die Reformation in Deutschland, published by the German National Museum, and with the recent 2008 Royal Academy (London) exhibition catalogue, Cranach (the Elder), showing a shrewd business mind and a versatility which enabled Luther's friend and chief propagandist also to work for Catholic patrons such as Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg, and to paint Venuses promptly banned from London's Underground. My only quibbles are that Steffens's very useful parallel chronology (1500–1918) of the changes to the four venues he describes (p. 327) should have come in his introduction, and there should have been an index to locate so much fresh information. Steffens's comparative approach is also welcome to an English-speaking reader mindful of conservation arguments raised by a Ruskin, whom he cites, or by inference the arts and crafts aesthetics of William Morris. Purpose, function and aesthetics, moved notably via Schinkel's involvement, from his own eclectic uncertainty – Romanesque, Renaissance, medieval Gothic (which period?) – to grandiose High Gothic. Much had to do with political fortune: Prussia's acquisition in 1815 of a large slice of Saxony, and pious kings who saw themselves as protectors of the Reformation cultural heritage in lands which included a Roman Catholic Church on the advance. Reconstruction (1885–92) of Wittenberg's Schlosskirche – destroyed by fire in 1763 and rebuilt between 1763 and 1771 according to the Protestant layout of Dresden's new combined pulpit-altar white-and gold-leaf churches, but severely damaged in the Napoleonic wars – in this demonstrative manner by emperors Frederick iii and William ii stands out in the photograph of the reconsecration ceremony before the Kaiser on 31 October 1892 (p. 319). But smaller states like Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach were not to be outdone. Grand Duke Karl Alexander (1818–1901) and his ambitious Russian mother, Grand Duchess Maria Paulovna, rather like Prince Albert, wished to unite cultural heritage with modern times; in this case Weimar culture with Luther's Wartburg, in which the latter, in this grand duke's words (1841), would serve as a ‘museum for the history of our house, our state, and Germany as a whole’ (p. 174). The two 1838 sketches (p. 175) of the Wartburg show it as a German ‘campo santo’. A bourgeoisification of Luther, for want of a better word, in this central German region of crafts and small towns rolled out too. Eislebeners and Wittenbergers organised their heritage in various civic societies. Telling was the way in which Eislebeners employed the Nuremberg arts and crafts designer, Friedrich Wanderer, responsible for refurnishing in 1881 Nuremberg's Dürerhaus (p. 124), acquired by the city in 1826, to do the same shortly afterwards (1888–94) to Andreaskirchplatz 7. Of the many plates to ponder over in this rich cautionary tale about modern themed heritage, one of the most charming is Schwerdgeburth's 1843 copper print (p. 51) of a homely bourgeois Luther and his family seated around their Christmas tree on Christmas Eve.