The triptych by Michael Triegel has been loaned for two years to the Teutonic chapel at the Vatican and was publicly displayed there last week after UNESCO concerns and a July decision to move the panel from its planned site at Naumburg Cathedral.Triegel based his bearded, red‑cap St. Peter on a German homeless man,
Burkhard Scheffler, who died from exposure on Nov. 25, 2022, and whose grave lies a short walk from the chapel;
Pope Francis arranged Scheffler’s burial at the
Teutonic cemetery and
Vatican officials say the placement gives new meaning to a man who was long invisible in life.