ABSTRACT
The broadsheet of the martyrdom of the English Carthusians was commissioned to articulate through one of the most effective mediums of communication available in 1555 the intentions of its donor, Cardinal Juan Álvarez de Toledo. Its creation and production depended upon the skills of a close-knit community of scholars, clerics, artists, anatomists and printers. It therefore inevitably reflects the concerns and beliefs of this group at the time when the fracture in the Christian body, having shown signs of having the potential for healing, widened and hardened into fixed opposition. Many of those involved in its production remained in communion with the Roman Church quietly hiding from scrutiny their continuing subscription to the very same fundamental belief - now pronounced anathema by the Church-which had proved the stumbling block to reconciliation, and which was now subtly embedded in the broadsheet itself.
