Jesuitenkirche Sankt Peter Köln Catholic parish

This guide to the Jesuitenkirche Sankt Peter in Cologne centers on Peter Paul Rubens's final altarpiece, a dramatic depiction of Saint Peter's martyrdom, hanging in the very church where Rubens was baptized. It follows the painting from its 1636 commission by the wealthy Jabach family through a Napoleonic-era seizure to Paris and two decades in the Louvre before its return in 1815. You'll hear how the painting was separated from the church for its own safety during the Second World War, and what became of the building around it. Stand in the south transept, where Rubens's own father is buried.