In the Prentenkabinet of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is preserved a complete set of prints entitled De ontaardig van de katholieke geestelijkheid oftewel de achtergronde van de opstand en de Beeldestorm (The Degeneration of Catholic Clergy, or the Background of Revolt and Iconoclasm). The twelve engravings, carved by the dutch humanist Dirck Volkertszoon Coornhert between 1572 and 1576, mirror the cultural outlines of the time: classical and Reinassance knowledge, religious doubts, history, alchemical practice and everyday life of a humanist. In these engravings, as on a stage, a number of sacred and secular allegories (the wolf in lamb’s disguise, Seduction, Ignorance, a belligerent androgyne) turn up, as well as historical figures such as Erasmus from Rotterdam and Martin Luther. The engraver is better known for his literary work than for the rich production of images, but a careful insight of the allegories that bring life to these plates leads now to revalue his iconographical language. His choice to tell the story of iconoclasm through images brought along, at the end of the XVI century, a revolutionary meaning that couldn’t be missed by a severe scholar, far from coeval ideological mainstream such as Coornhert. For the man of letters, the use of burin is not a mere makeshift solution due to his financial problems: it is a conscious and perhaps azardous choice, though an urgent one.