Hardly anyone walking through the rooms in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp, showing the works of the generation before Peter Paul Rubens, can claim not to have been impressed by the large-format oil paintings of a series of exceptionally gruesome martyrdom scenes. It is the painting "Das Martyrium Der Heiligen Crispinus und Crispianus", "Das Beinwunder und Martyrium der Heiligen Cosma und Damian", "Diokletian verurteilt den Heiligen Sebastian zum Tode", "Szene aus dem Martyrium des Heiligen Sebastian" und "Szenen aus dem Martyrium des Heiligen Georg" all by Ambrosius Francken. As far as I know, this specific predilection for martyr scenes in Antwerp at the end of the 16th century has neither been discussed comprehensively nor explained in its context. The present text is devoted to these paintings, and no definitive answers can be given, but rather some central questions should be asked. Not all documents that could shed light on the meaning of these paintings have been located so far and only a few of the attribution questions can be definitively resolved at this point.