The Reformers, besides putting an end to the unity of Christianity—that until then had been one of the strongest elements of cultural cohesion in Europe—proposed new religious concepts that affected the representational modes, actually leaning towards the summary condemnation of sacred representation and triggering several episodes of mass destruction of sacred images which stripped countless temples converted to Protestantism of priceless artistic treasures. A witness writing in Ghent, in 1566, said that the fires that consumed the images there could be seen more than 15 km away.
