Schildergasse

This guide to Schildergasse in Cologne traces the street's name back to the shield-makers and heraldic painters who once worked its pavement, among them Stefan Lochner, the most sought-after painter in the city by the late 1440s. It follows Lochner through mounting debt, a plague outbreak in 1451, and the loss of his house to creditors soon after, until his name disappears from the record entirely. For nearly four hundred years afterward, nobody could say who had painted Cologne's most treasured altarpiece, the golden Dombild still on view in the cathedral nearby. Listen for how a chance find in an old traveler's diary finally reopened the question.