“ Statues of Luther (by Schadow) , Melanchthon and Bugenhagen embellish the town. The spot, outside the Elster Gate, where Luther publicly burned the papal bull in 1520, is marked by an oak tree. Floriculture, iron-founding, distilling and brewing are carried on. The formerly considerable manufacture of the heavier kinds of cloth has died out.
Wittenberg is mentioned as early as 1180. It was the capital of the little duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg, the rulers of which afterwards became electors of Saxony, and it continued to be a Saxon residence under the Ernestine electors. ”

“ Luther was appointed professor of philosophy here in 1508; and the new university rapidly acquired a considerable reputation from its connexion with the early Reformers. In opposition to the strict Lutheran orthodoxy of Jean it represented the more moderate doctrines of Melanchthon. In the Wittenberg Concord (1536) the reformers agreed to a settlement of the Eucharistic controversy. Shakespeare makes Hamlet and Horatio study at Wittenberg. The ancient electoral palace is another of the buildings that suffered severely in 1760 ”