Gerechtigkeitsspirale, Public artwork at St. Valentin Church, Kiedrich, Germany.

The Gerechtigkeitsspirale is a relief carving on a parapet panel of the pews in the pilgrimage church of St. Valentin in Kiedrich. Carved in 1510 by master carpenter Erhart Falckener in late Gothic style, it shows a German poem in capital letters spiraling from the center outward, with letters 4 cm high at the center growing to 6 cm at the edges. Acanthus tendrils frame the left side and thistle tendrils the right, and a caricature of a human face in profile appears above the last letter of "verlorn".

The pews of St. Valentin in Kiedrich, including the spiral panel, were commissioned by the parish priest Zweifuss, also known by the Latin name Bipes, and carved in late Gothic style by master carpenter Erhart Falckener in 1510. The text echoes the Psychomachia of Prudentius and the Reformatio Sigismundi, read as a call for justice before the Peasants' War of 1525.

The spiral's text is a call for social justice and religious integrity from the years before the Reformation and the Peasants' War of 1525. Its theme of virtues fighting vices goes back to Prudentius's Psychomachia, known in German through the Reformatio Sigismundi, printed in 1476. The first lines serve as the epigraph of Roland Stark's 2013 crime novel Tod im Klostergarten.

The artwork can be viewed inside the church and is best appreciated in natural daylight when the interior is well lit. Plan your visit outside of service times so you can examine the details without distractions.

Above the last letter of the word "VERLORN" Falckener carved a drollerie: a human face in profile, hidden in the acanthus and thistle tendrils that flank the spiral. The first lines of the poem serve as the epigraph of Roland Stark's 2013 crime novel Tod im Klostergarten.