This impressive coffee-table book, a collection, grew from an exhibit opened in October, 1999, at the National Gallery of Art. One of the greatest sculptors of the late Middle Ages, Riemenschneider presents a balance between formal elegance and strength of expression. He acknowledges the viewer's mobility (often from below the piece of art) and almost abandons polychromy. The artist shows late-Gothic features while reflecting early humanist concerns.

In “One Soul, Two Bodies: Lordship and Faith in the Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg c.1500” Thomas A. Brady, Jr., explains the complicated relationship of feudal remnants and the Church, as well as Mayor Riemenschneider's involvement in the Peasants’ War 1525 at Würzburg. The war grew from manifestations of general discontent with both bodies, concerning the exploitation of the common man and the corruption of Church and Lordships which brought about the Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and ultimately the religious wars in western Europe.

Hartmut Krohm's “Rudolphus de Scherenberg, Episcopus herbipolensis, Franciaeque orientalis Dux: Effigy and Rhetoric” showcases R.'s monument to Prince-Bishop de Scherenberg, carved of red Salzburg marble and gray Main sandstone. Rudolf (born 1400, died in 1495), a person of deep religious feeling, brought a new spirituality at a time of ecclesiastic corruption. Standing six meters high, the effigy emphasized Roman antiquity (red marble), its splendor insisting on an ideal leader within a concrete personality. Architecture serves allegorically to enhance sculpture here, to express a will and the authority to reform the Church.

“Tilman Riemenschneider's Kaisergrab: Type and Program” by Iris Kalden- Rosenfeld views a sculptured tomb commissioned by the episcopal court of Bamberg in 1499, to honor the sainted Emperor Henry II and his wife Kunigunde. Located in Bamberg Cathedral and delayed for a long time, the tomb was completed during the early years of the sixteenth century for the two persons who had died in 1024 and 1033, respectively. R. created a rectangle on a two-layered stone base and depicted Henry and his wife on the upper slab in full imperial regalia under canopies, while the sides of the structure showed significant scenes from the couple's lives. Reptiles and amphibians at the base form a connection with (English) transi tombs (vanitas).