This collection of eight essays, grounded in public lectures, presents the protean and enigmatic Martin Luther from exemplary and representative perspectives (by members of different scholarly disciplines: bibliography, theology, history of law, history, cultural history, neo-Latin philology, German philology and English philology). The heuristic categories of "traditions, contexts and radical changes" allow to focus on individual selections from the enormously rich and different details of the Luther-cosmos, to concentrate on the analysis of Luther's influences as 'reformator' on the one hand and on the other hand to analyze and critically evaluate his deep anchorage in the broader contexts of central Europe's cultural history.